Vitalik Buterin floats swapping Ethereum's EVM for RISC-V to boost scalability

Quick Take

  • In a new forum post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposes boosting Ethereum’s scalability by using RISC-V as the virtual machine language of smart contracts, rather than the current EVM bytecode. 
  • Buterin said the “radical” and “ambitious” idea could be the “only viable path” for significantly scaling Ethereum’s execution layer. 

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, in a new blog post on the Ethereum Magicians forum, floated a "radical" long-term proposal for the blockchain network's execution layer: replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine's (EVM) bytecode with the open-source RISC-V architecture. 

"The beam chain effort holds great promise for greatly simplifying the consensus layer of Ethereum," Buterin wrote. "But for the execution layer to see similar gains, this kind of radical change may be the only viable path."


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AUTHOR

Zack Abrams is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. Before coming to The Block, he was the Head Writer at Coinage, a Web3 media outlet covering the biggest stories in Web3. The story he co-reported on Do Kwon won a 2022 Best in Business Journalism award from SABEW. Other projects included a deep dive into SBF's defense based on exclusive documents and unveiling the identity of the hacker behind one of 2023's biggest crypto hacks — so far. He can be reached via X @zackdabrams or email, [email protected].

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