Vitalik Buterin reveals Ethereum game plan for 2024

According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the easiest way to address most of the flaws in the Ethereum PoS architecture is to focus on the role of single-slot finality. The Ethereum roadmap for 2024 released by co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who acknowledged that there haven’t been many changes from the previous year.

Buterin stated that the six primary components of Ethereum will remain the core of the platform in 2024 in a series of tweets.

Furthermore, Buterin expanded on these six elements the Merge, the Surge, the Scourge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge in a comprehensive chart complete with commentaries and pictures.

He said that, in comparison to the roadmap for 2023, there are just a few small changes as Ethereum’s technological direction becomes more apparent:

“As Ethereum’s technical path forward continues to solidify, there are relatively few changes.”

Ethereum’s Post-Merge Evolution

The roadmap emphasized the Merge as a crucial component to preserve a straightforward and durable proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. In September 2022, the Merge combined the proof-of-stake blockchain Beacon Chain and the Ethereum mainnet.

The biggest development in Ethereum after the merger was the switch from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus method that consumed much power to proof-of-stake (PoS), significantly reducing the network’s overall energy consumption.

He also mentioned the advancements in Ethereum’s single-slot finality (SSF). To prevent at least 33% of the total staked Ether (USD 2,317) from burned, finality seeks to ensure that modifications to a blockchain block are irreversible. Single-slot finality (SSF) is becoming increasingly important for post-merge PoS enhancement. SSF is the simplest way to address many of the present issues with the Ethereum PoS design.

This comes after Buterin’s desire to bring back the original concept of the blockchain’s “cypherpunk” revolution was recently revealed by Cointelegraph.

A “cypherpunk” is someone who accesses computer networks using encryption to protect their privacy, particularly from government agencies.

According to Buterin’s blog post, he initially intended Ethereum to be a “public decentralized shared hard drive” capable of utilizing decentralized file storage and peer-to-peer messaging.

However, with Ethereum’s shift toward financialization in 2017, the vision began to fade. However, Buterin pointed out that second-generation privacy solutions, rollups, and zero-knowledge proofs have grown in popularity. He mentioned that these may uphold some of the ideals connected to cypherpunk theory.