Chainfeeds Guide:
Where will Ethereum head towards in 2030? In this Rollup technology divide, how will the vision of the world ledger become a reality?
Article Source:
https://foresightnews.pro/article/detail/88103
Article Author:
Lemniscap
Perspective:
Lemniscap: Ethereum initially pursued a "Rollup-centric" route, aiming to migrate most activities to L2, with L1 only handling minimized consensus and data availability functions. However, the reality proves that L1 still needs to bear the foundation of an active network: higher throughput, faster block generation, and stronger verification mechanisms are the trend. The upcoming Beam Chain consensus mechanism, RISC-V virtual machine replacing EVM, and other upgrades are designed to enhance L1 performance and neutrality. These base layer upgrades not only strengthen the ecological interaction of alignment-type Rollups (such as native verification, shared sequencing, etc.) but also require performance-type Rollups to rely on stronger alternative data availability (DA) solutions to expand throughput. By 2030, Rollup projects will gradually diverge into two extremes: one type deeply aligned with Ethereum, focusing on security and composability; the other prioritizing throughput and UX, leaning towards centralized sequencing or modular DA. Rollups in the middle ground, lacking both strong performance and alignment advantages, will struggle to maintain network effects and liquidity, facing marginalization risks. Ethereum's infrastructure is undergoing comprehensive reconstruction, covering execution, settlement, consensus, and DA layers. The execution layer plans to introduce a RISC-V virtual machine, adopting a dual VM mode, retaining EVM backward compatibility while using RISC-V to improve zk proof efficiency and expand mainstream development language participation. In the settlement layer, a new EXECUTE pre-compilation function is proposed, allowing native Ethereum verification of Rollup state transitions, giving birth to "native Rollups" as protocol-level execution shards, simplifying development and enhancing security. The consensus layer is reconstructed as Beam Chain, aiming to reduce finality from the current approximately 15 minutes to 12 or even 4 seconds, lowering verification costs through SNARK-ization, and reducing validator thresholds to 1 ETH, enhancing decentralization and neutrality. In the data availability layer, Danksharding and PeerDAS are advancing to increase data throughput to 8 MB+ per block, with a long-term goal of supporting 100,000 TPS. These upgrades build a strong performance foundation for L1, enabling Ethereum to not only provide strong guarantees for alignment-type Rollups but also compete with alternative DA and modular networks. The future Ethereum ecosystem will feature two coexisting Rollup modes. One is alignment-type Rollups, inheriting Ethereum's security, liquidity, and trusted neutrality through L1 native sequencing, verification, and settlement, suitable for high-value DeFi, governance, and asset custody scenarios, with MEV, gas consumption, and settlement fees benefiting ETH; the other is performance-type Rollups, serving large-scale user scenarios like gaming, social, and retail, introducing some trust assumptions but still relying on Ethereum settlement for reputation support. The ecosystem's middle ground will gradually shrink, as it lacks both extreme performance and strong alignment advantages. Ethereum's roadmap, through protocol upgrades, pre-compilations, Rollup standardization, and DA improvements, builds foundational capabilities supporting these two types of chains, laying the groundwork for the "world ledger" vision. Future crypto activities will integrate around a few hubs, with Rollups converging towards either "maximum performance" or "deepest alignment", becoming the first choice for users and developers. Ethereum is thus achieving a key transition from a "minimal consensus layer" to a "trusted execution and settlement center".
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