Possible Future Development Directions of Ethereum Protocol: Prosperity Stage

The future development direction of the Ethereum protocol is referred to as the "prosperity" phase. This phase mainly focuses on some detailed improvements, but these improvements are crucial for the success of Ethereum. The main objectives of the prosperity phase include:

• Optimize the EVM for high performance and stable "final state"
• Introduce account abstraction at the protocol layer, allowing all users to use safer and more convenient accounts.
• Optimize the trading fee economic model to improve scalability while reducing risk.
• Explore advanced cryptographic technologies to lay the foundation for the long-term development of Ethereum.

! Vitalik on the possible future of Ethereum (6): The Splurge

EVM improvements

The first step in the current EVM improvement roadmap is the EVM object format ( EOF ). EOF is a series of EIPs that defines a new version of EVM code with multiple new features:

• Separation of code and data
• Dynamic redirection is prohibited, only static redirection is allowed.
• EVM code cannot observe fuel-related information
• Added explicit subroutine mechanism

! Vitalik on the possible future of Ethereum (6): The Splurge

Legacy contracts will continue to exist and can be created, but they may eventually be phased out. New contracts will benefit from the efficiency improvements brought by EOF.

After EOF, further upgrades become easier. The most mature development currently is the EVM module arithmetic extension ( EVM-MAX ). EVM-MAX creates a set of new opcodes for modular operations and places them in a separate memory space.

Another idea is to combine EVM-MAX with the single instruction multiple data ( SIMD ) feature. SIMD can be used to accelerate various forms of cryptographic computations.

Account Abstraction

The core of account abstraction is to allow smart contracts to initiate transactions, rather than just externally owned accounts (EOA). The main challenge is how to implement this in a way that is friendly to decentralized networks and to guard against denial-of-service attacks.

After years of effort, a solution has finally been reached: ERC-4337. ERC-4337 separates the processing of user operations into two stages: validation and execution, to prevent multiple failure attacks.

Recent developments involve incorporating account abstraction into the protocol, such as EIP-7701. This approach allows accounts to have a separate verification code section, which is executed during the transaction validation step if the code is set.

EIP-1559 Improvement

EIP-1559 was activated on Ethereum in 2021, significantly improving the average block inclusion time. However, there are still some imperfections in the current implementation:

1. The formula has slight flaws, and the target is not an exact 50% of the blocks.
2. Adjustments are not rapid enough in extreme situations.

One solution to these issues is multidimensional Gas: setting different prices and limits for different resources. EIP-7706 introduces a new gas dimension specifically for calldata.

Verifiable Delay Functions ( VDFs )

A verifiable delay function is a function that can only be computed sequentially and cannot be accelerated through parallelization. VDF can be used as a more robust source of randomness, addressing the issue of "1 bit of control" for each proposer in the current RANDAO mechanism.

The main risk of VDF is accidental optimization: someone has found that the function runs faster than expected. Currently, no VDF construction has been found that fully meets the requirements of Ethereum researchers in all aspects.

Advanced Cryptography: Obfuscation and One-Time Signatures

Indistinguishable obfuscation allows the creation of "cryptographic programs" that execute arbitrary computations while hiding all internal details of the program. Quantum one-time signatures are a more powerful technology, but they rely on everyone having a quantum computer.

These advanced cryptographic technologies can bring stronger security and privacy protection to Ethereum, but they are still in the theoretical stage and there is a long way to go before practical application.

Overall, the "prosperity" phase will focus on optimizing various details of Ethereum, laying a solid foundation for its long-term development. These improvements may seem small, but they are crucial for the overall health and future potential of the Ethereum ecosystem.