Ethereum needs to get to a point where its value proposition remains even if developers stop active work on the protocol, according to its co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
He said Ethereum protocols should aspire to be like hammers: once purchased, they remain usable, unlike services that lose functionality when a vendor walks away.
“Being able to say ‘Ethereum’s protocol, as it stands today, is cryptographically safe for a hundred years’ is something we should strive to get to as soon as possible,” he added.
Vitalik Buterin’s seven areas of improvement
Buterin added a general-purpose account model for signature validation, a robust gas schedule free of security vulnerabilities, and a block-building model that can resist centralization and censorship pressures, will also crucial to ensure Ethereum stands the test of time.
“Every year, we should tick off at least one of these boxes, and ideally multiple,” in order to “maximize Ethereum’s technological and social robustness for the long term,” he said.
“Ideally, we do the hard work over the next few years, to get to a point where in the future almost all future innovation can happen through client optimization, and get reflected in the protocol through parameter changes,” said Buterin.
Ethereum needs better decentralized stablecoins
He suggested a stablecoin backed by a diversified basket of assets and currencies, rather than relying solely on one, like the US dollar, so its stability isn’t dependent on a single nation.
