Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum is Becoming the Computer of the Crypto World
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published "The cryptographic world computer," stating that Ethereum is transforming from a traditional blockchain into a hybrid architecture that integrates ledgers, cryptographic privacy and verification, and decentralized off-chain components. He noted in the repost that this is no longer just a blockchain.
The article summarizes the form of 2030 as follows: on-chain primarily stores and verifies proofs, while heavy computation and large-scale execution are moved off-chain, allowing users to independently confirm results with brief proofs and data sampling. Verification shifts from re-downloading and executing blocks to SNARK verification and PeerDAS sampling; consensus moves towards optimized PoS with fewer slots for finality; block construction changes from a single entity to multi-party participation. Authorization methods expand from ordinary signatures to quantum-resistant signatures or zero-knowledge proofs.
He anticipates that the Hegota plan, set to be implemented next year, will likely be the last "traditional" hard fork, with technologies and features still recognizable by developers from 2015. After Hegota, the main line will shift to recursive STARK, automated formal verification, optimized consensus algorithms, and comprehensive quantum resistance. Public discussions suggest that the 2030 slot time will be about 4 to 8 seconds, with finality around 8 to 32 seconds. PeerDAS has entered the mainnet with Fusaka, currently used for sampling blobs, and plans to cover complete block content in the future.
The article emphasizes that decentralized networks no longer only incur costs for security and censorship resistance but can also enhance performance through parallel storage, parallel computing, and privacy protection. The prerequisite is to reduce the cost of generating proofs and safely coordinate parallel workflows; otherwise, scalability and privacy cannot coexist. The foundation aims to achieve quantum resistance for the execution layer, consensus layer, and data layer by December 2029.
In terms of market mechanisms, buyers incorporate the "verification layer" into the valuation of ETH, L2, and staking funds, while sellers still price L1 based on re-executing full nodes. Funds shift from redundant computation to proof generation, sampling bandwidth, and formal verification toolchains. Beneficiaries will be the infrastructure capable of producing proofs and sampling nodes, while the old client paths that must synchronize full states to self-verify will face pressure. The event-driven narrative is about writing the story after Hegota as a generational architectural change, rather than another list of fork features.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Vitalik breaks down the 2015 world computer into "on-chain verification + off-chain computation + cryptographic privacy." This publication does not list EIPs but names the next decade post-Hegota: moving forward, the subject of upgrades will be proof systems and quantum resistance replacements, not gas tables. Hegota is framed as the last fork that old developers can understand, effectively giving core developers a deadline to abandon the 2015 tool mindset.
The capital path is the externalization of verification costs. The proof market, sampling nodes, and multi-party inclusion will form a new fee layer, with the main chain charging for data availability and finality rents. Resources shift from full state hard drives to proof clusters. The motivation is to achieve throughput, privacy, and censorship resistance simultaneously: full network replay cannot maintain balance confidentiality, nor can it infinitely increase capacity.
Similar shifts include Bitcoin SPV, the Merge abandoning PoW, and rollups pushing execution out of L1. The industry is entering a control phase: L2 continues to expand execution, while L1 determines whose proofs are accepted by the entire network and who cannot be excluded from transaction inclusion. The transformation is incomplete, and the scope of Hegota and recursive STARK on the mainnet remains a project.
Structural judgments belong to technological substitution. Heavy execution is replaced by proofs, publicly visible intermediate states are replaced by verifiable privacy, and single builders are replaced by multi-party inclusion. The mechanism is: when verifying a proof is cheaper than re-running a transaction, the blockchain no longer relies on each node's repeated labor to claim security, and pricing power shifts from full client synchronization capabilities to proof supply.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The name change from blockchain to world computer is because the ledger can no longer accommodate computation.
The last traditional fork is to make room for proof systems.
The amount of computation off-chain depends on how much proof can be trusted on-chain.