The growing adoption of crypto across various industries obliged the key industrial players improve the crypto ecosystem. With the ongoing developments, the developers are working on improving the attractiveness of the blockchain network, led by Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin. In a recent announcement, Buterin unveiled a new Ethereum roadmap dubbed “The Scourge.”
In his proposal, Buterin highlighted the challenges facing Ethereum’s proof of stake (PoS). He noted that the centralization of the PoS has been threatening the growth of the ETH network.
Vitalik Buterin Launch The Scourage Proposal
He said that the changes in the economy impacted the centralization of PoS, where the larger stakers gain dominance while small stakers turn to large pools. The centralization problem prevented Ethereum from attaining the desired utilitarian value, where the large stakers profit at the expense of the small stakers.
Apart from this, Vitalik Buterin noted that the increase in centralization impacted 51% of attacks and transaction censorship. The executive pointed out that the centralization challenges have significantly impacted staking capital and block construction. Buterin explained that ETH has embraced proposer-builder separation (PBS) for block construction, allowing the validators and builders to execute specific tasks such as selecting blocks, bidding, selling blocks, and arranging transactions.
The executive stated that two builders on the Ether network are 88% responsible for block construction. In this case, where the two builders are responsible for block construction, there is a high probability of transaction censorship caused by delays in transaction verification. He noted that instead of taking 6 seconds, the transaction could take 114 seconds.
Even though the delays were not on every transaction, Vitalik Buterin noted that such delays might allow the two builders entirely responsible for block transactions to manipulate the market or delay urgent transactions. This implies that the concentration of power to the two builders has undermined the integrity of the ETH network.
Proof-of-Stake Risks
He explained that it was high time the ETH team divided the responsibility of block production to other builders. He suggested that the proposers, commonly known as stakers, should be granted the power to select transactions while the builder will organize the transaction.
He proposed the introduction of inclusion lists that randomly select stakers to ensure the transaction is valid. Additionally, the inclusion list mandates the block builders disclose all transactions and rearrange the block accordingly.
He proposed the use of multiple concurrent proposers (MCP), such as BRAID, which distributes block production to many proposers and builders. He suggests using encrypted mempools to allow ETH users to disclose their transactions using encrypted methods.
How Will Buterin Address Ethereum Proof-of-Stake Challenges
He explained that encrypted mempools allow users to prove their transactions are valid. He noted that the only limitation of the encrypted mempools is that the builder is unaware of the transaction until it is complete.
Buterin noted that for Ether to use an encrypted mempool, there will be changes in design using threshold decryption and delay encryption. Buterin believes that the PoS challenges can only be addressed through extensive research to introduce additional features, such as two-tiered staking models.
Vitalik Buterin’s proposal demonstrates the need to improve the Ethereum blockchain network to meet the ever-changing market demand. For more updates on how the new proposal will impact the performance of Ethereum, follow TurkishNY Radio on Tumblr, Telegram, and LinkedIn.
