Vitalik Buterin Warns Ethereum Must Change or Risk Falling Behind

• Buterin urges deep reforms to fix Ethereum proving bottlenecks
• Binary state tree proposal promises massive efficiency gains
• RISC-V plan sparks debate over Ethereum virtual machine future

Ethereum faces mounting pressure to improve efficiency as its core architecture shows strain under growing demand. According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the network must adopt deep structural reforms or risk losing ground in the race toward scalable blockchain infrastructure. His latest remarks place urgency at the center of Ethereum’s roadmap discussions.

According to Buterin, incremental updates will not resolve Ethereum’s proving inefficiencies. He stated that the state tree and virtual machine together account for more than 80% of proving bottlenecks. Consequently, he described major execution layer changes as mandatory for long-term viability, especially for client-side proving use cases.

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Binary State Tree Proposal Gains Fresh Momentum

One proposed shift focuses on replacing Ethereum’s current hexary Merkle Patricia Tree. The draft proposal, EIP-7864, would introduce a binary state tree structure. Developer Guillaume Ballet and contributors have worked on the proposal since January 2025. Buterin explained that a binary design would produce Merkle branches roughly four times shorter. As a result, light client tools such as Helios would require significantly less bandwidth.

Additionally, the proposal recommends switching from Keccak to a more efficient hash function. Blake3 or a Poseidon variant could deliver threefold to one hundredfold improvements in proving efficiency. However, Buterin acknowledged that Poseidon still requires further security analysis before adoption.

Earlier roadmap discussions centered on Verkle Trees for a 2026 hard fork. However, renewed concerns about elliptic curve cryptography and quantum resilience revived interest in binary alternatives. Consequently, state tree reform now appears central to upcoming execution layer upgrades.

RISC-V Push Signals Broader Architectural Reset

Beyond the state tree overhaul, Buterin reiterated his proposal to eventually replace the Ethereum Virtual Machine with RISC-V. According to his April 2025 outline, the transition would unfold in stages. Developers would first implement RISC-V for precompiles. Later, users could deploy RISC-V contracts. Eventually, the EVM would operate as a contract within the new architecture.

Buterin argued that Ethereum’s general-purpose design demands a virtual machine that supports modern proving systems. Moreover, most zero-knowledge provers already rely on RISC-V internally. He therefore views alignment between execution and proving layers as strategically important.

However, the proposal has sparked debate. In November 2025, researchers from Offchain Labs argued that WebAssembly represents a stronger long-term option. They maintained that the proving instruction set and delivery format do not need to match.

Upgrade Timeline Places Pressure on Developers

Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade remains scheduled for the first half of 2026, with Hegota expected later that year. Developers have yet to finalize the headline proposals for those forks. Nevertheless, according to Buterin, Ethereum has handled deep in-flight upgrades before and can manage more. His warning signals that structural change now defines Ethereum’s path forward.

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