Vitalik Buterin Targets Ethereum’s Core Bottlenecks with Bold Overhaul

Vitalik Buterin is shifting the Ethereum scaling conversation away from Layer 2 (L2) and back to the protocol’s core.

The Russo-Canadian innovator argues that Ethereum’s biggest long-term constraints are not rollups or blob capacity, but deeper architectural bottlenecks inside the network’s state tree and virtual machine.

Vitalik Buterin Proposes Deep Ethereum Overhaul Targeting State Tree and Virtual Machine Bottlenecks

According to Buterin, two components — the network’s state tree and virtual machine — account for more than 80% of the proving costs. This, he says, is a critical issue as zero-knowledge (ZK) technology becomes central to Ethereum’s roadmap.

“Today I’ll focus on two big things: state tree changes, and VM changes,” Buterin wrote, adding that both are “the big bottlenecks that we have to address if we want efficient proving.”

A Binary Tree Overhaul

At the heart of the proposal is EIP-7864, which would replace Ethereum’s current hexary Merkle Patricia tree with a binary tree design.

The change may sound subtle, but its implications are significant. Binary trees would produce Merkle proofs roughly 4 times shorter than the current structure, dramatically reducing verification bandwidth requirements.

That makes lightweight clients and privacy-preserving applications cheaper and more viable.

The new structure would also group storage slots into “pages,” allowing applications that load related data to do so more efficiently.

Many decentralized applications (dApps) repeatedly access adjacent storage slots. This means the upgrade could save more than 10,000 gas per transaction in some cases.

Buterin also suggested pairing the tree change with more efficient hash functions, potentially delivering further gains in proof generation speed.

More importantly, the redesign would make Ethereum’s base layer more “prover-friendly,” allowing ZK applications to integrate directly with Ethereum’s state instead of building parallel systems.

Zooming out, the binary tree proposal aims to consolidate a decade of lessons on state management into a cleaner, future-proof structure.

A Future Beyond the EVM?

Even more ambitious is Buterin’s long-term vision for Ethereum’s execution engine. He floated the idea of eventually moving beyond the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) toward a RISC-V–based architecture.

RISC-V is a widely used open instruction set that could offer greater efficiency and simplicity.

Buterin argued that Ethereum’s increasing reliance on special-case precompiles reflects a deeper discomfort with the EVM itself.

If Ethereum’s core promise is general-purpose programmability, he suggested, then the VM should fully support that vision without excessive workarounds. A RISC-V-based VM could:

• Reduce complexity
• Improve raw execution efficiency, and
• Better align with modern zero-knowledge proving systems, many of which already use RISC-V environments internally.

In the near term, Buterin proposed a “vectorized math precompile,” described as a “GPU for the EVM.” This could significantly accelerate cryptographic operations.

Longer term, he outlined a phased transition in which RISC-V would first power precompiles, then support user-deployed contracts, and eventually absorb the EVM itself as a compatibility layer.

Debate Over Complexity

However, not everyone is convinced Ethereum needs more deep-layer changes. Analyst DBCrypto criticized what he described as growing abstraction across the Ethereum roadmap, including new frameworks aimed at addressing rollup fragmentation.

Each additional layer, he argued, increases complexity, introduces trust assumptions, and creates additional potential attack surfaces.

The tension reflects a broader debate over whether Ethereum should continue layering solutions on top of its existing design or rework its foundation.

However, according to Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s architecture must evolve and adapt as zero-knowledge proofs move from a niche to a necessity.

The next phase of scaling, he suggests, may not occur on Layer 2 but rather deep within Ethereum’s core.