Vitalik Buterin Proposes Radical Overhaul of Ethereum Execution Layer
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined two sweeping execution-layer upgrades he considers essential for long-term scalability:
- Replacing the current hexary Keccak Merkle Patricia Tree with a binary state tree (via EIP-7864)
- Eventually replacing the EVM entirely with a more efficient virtual machine (likely RISC-V)
Buterin argued that the state tree and VM together account for >80% of Ethereum’s proving bottleneck — making both changes “basically mandatory” for client-side proving, ZK rollups, and light-client scalability.
Binary State Tree (EIP-7864) – Concrete and In-Progress
The first change centers on EIP-7864, which would swap Ethereum’s current state tree for a binary tree using a more efficient hash function (Blake3 or Poseidon). Benefits include:
- Merkle branches 4× shorter → drastically reduced bandwidth for light clients (e.g., Helios)
- Potential 3×–100× proving efficiency gain depending on the hash function chosen
- Credits go to developer Guillaume Ballet and others for advancing the proposal since January 2025
Buterin noted Poseidon requires more security review, but the binary tree design is a mature, actionable step forward — reviving interest after Verkle Trees faced quantum-vulnerability concerns in mid-2024.
Replacing the EVM – Longer-Term, More Speculative
Buterin reiterated his April 2025 proposal to transition Ethereum to RISC-V (the open-source ISA most ZK provers already use internally). Proposed three-stage rollout:
- Use RISC-V only for precompiles
- Allow users to deploy native RISC-V contracts
- Fully retire the EVM (converted into a smart contract in the new VM)
He argued:
“Ethereum’s whole point is its generality, and if the EVM is not good enough to actually meet the needs of that generality, then we should tackle the problem head-on, and make a better VM.”
The proposal faces pushback — notably from Offchain Labs (Arbitrum) researchers who published a detailed November 2025 rebuttal favoring WebAssembly (WASM). Their core argument: the “delivery ISA” (what developers write in) and “proving ISA” (what ZK circuits optimize for) do not need to be identical.
Context Within Ethereum’s Upgrade Roadmap
Buterin framed these changes as part of roughly four more “jet engine in-flight” upgrades Ethereum can handle (after The Merge):
- State tree overhaul
- Lean consensus
- Native ZK-EVM verification
- VM transition
The upcoming Glamsterdam (H1 2026) and Hegota (H2 2026) upgrades have not finalized headline EIPs, but state-tree changes and execution-layer improvements remain central to planning discussions.
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