Ethereum: The Cornerstone of the Global Smart Contract Platform
Ethereum is one of the world's largest decentralized application (DApp) platforms, with its native token being Ether (ETH). It is not only a digital currency but also the "fuel" that powers the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Ethereum aims to build a decentralized, permissionless, and censorship-resistant computing platform that supports developers in creating and deploying various smart contracts and decentralized applications.
Core Elements of Ethereum's Technical Architecture
Ethereum's technical architecture is intricate and sophisticated, with its core components forming the foundation of its powerful functionalities:
- Blockchain: Ethereum's underlying public database, recording all transactions and smart contract interactions. Data is cryptographically linked into a chain, ensuring immutability.
- Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): Ethereum's built-in computation engine responsible for executing smart contract code. The EVM is Turing-complete, capable of handling complex computational tasks.
- Smart Contracts: Self-executing programs deployed on Ethereum addresses, triggered by transactions. They are trustless protocols, typically written in languages like Solidity.
- Accounts: Entities within the Ethereum network that can hold ETH balances and send transactions. They are divided into externally owned accounts (controlled by private keys) and contract accounts (controlled by smart contract code).
- Transactions: Operations that cause a change in the Ethereum network's state, including ETH transfers, smart contract calls, and more.
- Nodes & Clients: Computers participating in the Ethereum network and the software they run, used to validate transactions and synchronize the blockchain state.
- Gas: A unit measuring the computational resources required for a transaction. Transaction senders must pay ETH as Gas fees to incentivize validators to process transactions and prevent network abuse.
Major Consensus Mechanism Shift: Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Ethereum successfully transitioned from the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism with "The Merge" upgrade in September 2022. This shift reduced Ethereum's energy consumption by approximately 99.95%, significantly enhancing the network's sustainability.
Overview of the Ethereum Tech Stack
Ethereum's tech stack encompasses smart contract languages (such as Solidity), development frameworks, APIs for interacting with smart contracts (such as JavaScript API, JSON-RPC), and key scaling solutions (such as Rollups, state channels, sidechains). Additionally, it includes data availability layers, network layers (such as the devp2p protocol stack), and data structures (such as Patricia Merkle prefix trees), all collectively supporting Ethereum's decentralized vision.
Ethereum's Future Roadmap: Five Stages
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined Ethereum's long-term development roadmap into "The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, The Splurge" stages, aiming to continuously improve its scalability, security, and decentralization.
- The Merge: Completed in September 2022, marking Ethereum's official transition to the PoS consensus mechanism.
- The Surge: Aims to significantly increase Ethereum's transaction processing capacity through technologies like Sharding and Rollups, with a target of 100,000 transactions per second.
- The Scourge: Aims to address censorship issues and challenges posed by Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) on the network, for example, through the Proposer/Builder Separation (PBS) scheme.
- The Verge: Aims to optimize Ethereum's data storage by introducing technologies like Verkle trees, reducing the hardware resources required to run nodes, making it easier for more users to run validator nodes.
- The Purge: Aims to streamline storage by clearing old historical data, reducing the disk space required by validators, thereby minimizing network congestion.
- The Splurge: After all the aforementioned stages are completed, a series of miscellaneous and "fun" improvements will be implemented to further enhance the Ethereum ecosystem.
Recent Upgrades and Future Outlook
Ethereum's roadmap is a dynamic and evolving process, with its core development team steadily advancing various upgrades.
Dencun Upgrade
The Dencun upgrade was activated on March 13, 2024, marking the official start of "The Surge" phase. The core of this upgrade is the introduction of Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844), which provides cheaper temporary data storage for Layer 2 Rollups through "blobs." This significantly reduced Rollup transaction costs, typically by about 10x, thereby enabling more user participation.
Future Upgrade Plans After Dencun
- Fusaka: Originally planned for December 3, 2025. The main features of this upgrade include PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling) for more efficient data availability, a planned increase in Blob throughput (targeting from 3 to 6, maximum 9), and an increase in the Gas limit.
- Glamsterdam: Expected to launch in Q4 2026. This upgrade will incorporate in-protocol Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS), helping L1 scaling by allowing validators to process more data. Additionally, block-level access lists will be introduced for faster synchronization and parallel execution.
- Hegotá: Expected in 2027. This upgrade will include several important improvements, such as FOCIL (Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists) to enhance censorship resistance, Quick Slots (EIP-8198) aimed at shortening block intervals to speed up transaction confirmation, and Frame Transactions (EIP-8141) introducing native account abstraction to optimize user experience, security, and privacy, supporting features like passkey wallets, transaction sponsorship, and token payment for Gas.
Related Data and Ecosystem Development
After the Dencun upgrade, Rollup call data costs significantly decreased, but the daily average ETH burn also reduced, leading to a slight rebound in ETH supply. Ethereum's continuous development relies on its robust ecosystem and community support.
- Vitalik Buterin: As the founder of Ethereum, he continuously drives technological innovation and proposed restructuring the transaction architecture through EIP-8141 to reduce fees and improve efficiency.
- Ethereum Foundation (EF): Responsible for managing funds, operations, and forming R&D teams. Recently, through organizational restructuring, it has focused internal work on core protocol R&D and supported external independent organizations to undertake some functions.
- Rollup Providers: Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism actively utilize the Blob feature after the Dencun upgrade to reduce their network fees and enhance user experience.
- Community Developers and Researchers: Ethereum's roadmap is the result of the collaborative efforts of core researchers and developers, and it continuously evolves as new information and technologies emerge.
Ethereum's future development roadmap clearly outlines a vision for a more scalable, secure, and user-friendly decentralized platform. With the gradual implementation of various upgrades, Ethereum is expected to continue solidifying its leading position in the blockchain world.
