Vitalik Buterin Reveals Details of Ethereum Scaling: From Glamsterdam to the Long-Term Economy

Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin presented a detailed analysis of the network’s development roadmap, emphasizing that scaling should be broken down into separate phases: near-term and long-term. This approach will allow for methodical implementation of necessary technological improvements, ensuring the reliability and efficiency of each upgrade.

Short-term solutions: Glamsterdam and gas optimization

In the near term, Ethereum scaling will mainly rely on the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. Key technical improvements include the use of block-level access lists for faster transaction verification and the implementation of the ePBS mechanism, which will provide more time for block validation.

Simultaneously, gas pricing models will be adjusted according to actual operation execution times. Additionally, a multi-dimensional gas system is planned—distinguishing resource consumption across different types. This solution aims to mitigate the critical issue of state bloat, where network storage grows uncontrollably.

Multi-dimensional gas: solving the state bloat problem

During the Glamsterdam upgrade, costs for creating new states will be separated from the standard gas limit. This means that gas used for state initialization will not count toward the overall limit, allowing for deployment of larger smart contracts without restrictions.

The EVM will maintain full compatibility through a “reservoir” mechanism, ensuring correct operation of subroutine calls and gas-related operations. Over time, Ethereum will gradually adopt multi-dimensional gas pricing, achieving long-term economic sustainability while maintaining system flexibility.

Long-term perspective: ZK-EVM and increased data throughput

Looking ahead, development efforts will focus on implementing ZK-EVM and expanding blob usage. Through iterative improvements, including the introduction of PeerDAS, blobs aim to achieve data throughput of 8 MB/sec, enabling validators and users to verify block data directly without downloading all data.

According to Vitalik Buterin’s vision, this multi-layered approach to Ethereum scaling will ensure long-term network scalability while preserving decentralization and security as core principles.