Vitalik Buterin Laments Ethereum’s Delay in Transitioning to PoS

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder and lead architect of Ethereum, expressed his regret at ETHBerlin for not adopting a simpler version of Proof of Stake (PoS) earlier. He also pointed out that Ethereum is still not fully understood despite its mainstream success, unlike Bitcoin, which has a clear narrative as digital gold.
During the ETHBerlin event, 620 developers attended after three days of continuous coding. It was a surprise to see Vitalik Buterin take the stage, and his reflections on Ethereum’s design were even more unexpected.
Ethereum’s popularity has reached new heights, with the approval of a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund in the US and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, launching its own tokenized fund on Ethereum’s blockchain. The Ethereum network has grown into a vast ecosystem of developers and financial applications worth over $63 billion, making it bigger than ever.
However, Buterin has a list of things he would have done differently. This includes the development of Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM), smart contracts, and the PoS consensus mechanism.
According to Buterin, “Bitcoin has a simple narrative, which is digital gold. But with Ethereum, it’s like, ‘Whoa, what the heck is Ethereum?'”
While sitting on stage with ETHBerlin organizers Afri Schoedon and Franziska Heintel, Buterin shared his fondest memories in Berlin. These included hacking in an old office with Ethereum co-founders Gavin Wood and Jeffrey Wilcke, launching Devcon Zero, and celebrating the Merge upgrade in 2022.
During the discussion, Schoedon asked Buterin an interesting question: “With everything you know and everything you’ve learned over the last 10 years, how would you build Ethereum differently today if you could start from scratch?”
Buterin’s first concern was Ethereum’s Virtual Machine. The original EVM design used 256-bit processing, which was inefficient for most operations and led to unnecessary bloat on the blockchain. Buterin believes that using 64- or 32-bit processing would have been more efficient.
He also mentioned that early Ethereum developers should have focused on simplifying smart contracts. By reducing the number of lines of code, transparency would have been increased, making it easier to see and verify what was happening inside them. Buterin believes that Ethereum’s switch from a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to PoS should have happened much earlier.
The switch to PoS replaced miners with validators who stake 32 Ethereum to secure the network and earn rewards. Buterin regrets not implementing a simpler proof-of-stake in 2018, as it would have saved a significant amount of resources.
Another regret was the lack of automatic logging from the beginning. Automatic logging helps users track big-money token transfers and detect potential security risks, making it easier to follow the money. Buterin believes that this feature should have been included from the start.
Overall, Buterin’s reflections shed light on the areas where Ethereum could have been improved. Despite its success, there are lessons to be learned and changes that could have been made to make Ethereum even better.