Ethereum inventor predicts massive increase in performance
No time right now?
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and conceptual inventor of Ethereum, expects a massive increase in performance in the network within the next few months. This is essentially what roll-up solutions are supposed to do.
On the occasion an appearance on the Tim Ferris podcast Buterin commented on the current problems in the Ethereum network. Buterin spoke to his host about level 1 and level scaling solutions that are intended to increase performance in the Ethereum network and reduce costs.
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High expectations of scaling solutions
Buterin has particularly high expectations of a so-called level 2 solution called rollups. Behind this is a technology in which transactions are first stored on a secondary blockchain and then written back to the mainnet in stacks.
Level 2 solutions have the advantage that they are based on the protocol and therefore do not require any changes to the core code of the blockchain. They are therefore generally quicker to implement.
With Ethereum 2, which is not expected for a few years, a level 1 scaling, i.e. a direct scaling of the protocol layer, is to be added. In the case of Ethereum, this will be what is known as sharding. Sharding divides the blockchain into partitions (shards) that can be processed individually. A transaction only leads to a load on the respective shard and not – as before – the entire chain. The more shards, the higher the throughput, so the simple approach.
Buterin: Rollups are coming “very soon”
On the podcast, Buterin promises that rollups will “be coming very soon.” If further scaling is required at a later date, this can be regulated by sharding, he says. He apparently assumes that the scaling through the rollups will bring enough additional performance for a while.
Like other experts, Buterin reckons that level 2 scaling will bring about a 100-fold increase in performance. If sharding is then also used, the scaling is scaled again. The acceleration of the mainnet through sharding is set at a factor of 10. Together, L1 and L2 solutions can scale Ethereum by a factor of 1,000.
