Vitalik: ZK-EVM and PeerDAS will solve the blockchain trilemma, enabling the Ethereum network to achieve decentralization, security, and scalability simultaneously

On January 4, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin took to social media to note: “With ZK-EVM entering the alpha phase (performance now production-ready, with remaining key work focused on security) and PeerDAS already live on mainnet, we’ll explore what this combination means for Ethereum. This isn’t a minor upgrade—they’re turning Ethereum into a fundamentally new, more powerful decentralized network.” BitTorrent (2000) is highly bandwidth-intensive and decentralized but lacks a consensus mechanism. Bitcoin (2009) is highly decentralized and has consensus, but it’s low on bandwidth—because it achieves “distribution” not via sharding, but through work duplication. Now, with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVM (expected to see network adoption by 2026) in the mix, Ethereum has all three: decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth. The “impossible trilemma” isn’t just solved on paper—it’s solved with working code. Half (data availability sampling) is already live on mainnet today; the other half (ZK-EVM) has hit production-ready performance, with security as the main remaining focus. Over the next roughly four years, this vision is expected to unfold gradually: • 2026: Gas limits (independent of ZK-EVM) will rise substantially thanks to BALs and ePBS; we’ll also see the first chances to run ZK-EVM nodes. • 2026–2028: Gas repricing, state structure tweaks, execution payloads moving to blobs, and other changes to boost security for higher gas limits. • 2027–2030: As ZK-EVM becomes the network’s primary block verification method, gas limits will see another substantial increase. The third piece of this vision is distributed block construction. A long-term goal: no single entity should ever fully build a complete block. Even before hitting that milestone, we aim to significantly distribute block construction power. This can be done via on-chain methods (e.g., expanding FOCIL to become the main channel for transactions entering blocks) and off-chain tools like a distributed builder marketplace. Doing so will cut the risk of centralized actors interfering in real-time transaction packaging and create a more geographically equitable landscape.