Buterin Targets State Tree and VM Bottlenecks for Ethereum Scaling

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is calling for a fundamental overhaul of the network's core architecture, citing that over 80% of proving costs stem from two key components: the state tree and the virtual machine.

The current hexary Merkle Patricia tree would be replaced with a simpler binary tree design under EIP-7864, resulting in shorter Merkle proofs and reduced verification bandwidth. This change could make lightweight clients cheaper to run and improve the efficiency of decentralized applications that load related data.

In addition to the state tree changes, Buterin proposed a longer-term vision to move past the Ethereum Virtual Machine altogether in favor of a RISC-V-based architecture. He described a phased deployment where RISC-V would first power precompiles, then support user-deployed contracts, and eventually absorb the EVM as a compatibility layer.

Not everyone agrees that the network needs more deep-layer changes, however. Analyst DBCrypto criticized what he called growing abstraction across the Ethereum roadmap, arguing that each additional layer increases complexity, introduces trust assumptions, and creates potential attack surfaces.