Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin says recent protocol enhancements have effectively addressed the decades‑old “blockchain trilemma” — the idea that networks must sacrifice decentralization, security or scalability to optimize the others — by combining innovations now operating on or nearing deployment on the mainnet.
In a post on the social platform X, Buterin framed the convergence of two developments as a defining moment for the network. The first is Peer‑to‑Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS), a core feature introduced with the Fusaka upgrade late last year that is live on Ethereum’s mainnet and designed to reduce the burden on individual nodes by sampling small subsets of data rather than requiring full downloads.
The second component involves zero‑knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (ZK‑EVMs), which are now at a production‑quality performance stage with ongoing safety work remaining before broader deployment, according to Buterin. Together, these technologies aim to boost throughput while preserving decentralization and security — a balance that has eluded blockchains for years.
Buterin wrote that this pairing shows the network’s evolution from incremental improvement to a structurally different decentralized system capable of higher bandwidth consensus without compromising its foundational principles.
The concept of the blockchain trilemma originates from industry theory that earlier networks could optimize only two of the three core properties at once. For example, first‑generation systems offered strong decentralization and security but limited throughput, while some newer chains raised throughput at the expense of decentralization or trust assumptions. Buterin’s comments emphasize that separating data availability, execution logic and validation allows Ethereum to tackle these constraints concurrently.
PeerDAS works by allowing nodes to verify that transaction data exists without downloading the entire dataset, using erasure coding to reconstruct missing pieces. This approach significantly lowers computational and storage requirements on validators and is expected to support higher transaction bandwidth.
Looking ahead, Buterin outlined a multi‑year roadmap with further scaling milestones. In 2026, Ethereum plans to raise gas limits not dependent on ZK‑EVMs and introduce initial opportunities for validators to run ZK‑EVM nodes. Between 2026 and 2028, upgrades will focus on gas repricing and structural changes to the state, including moving execution payloads into data blobs to enable safer higher throughput. From 2027 onward, ZK‑EVMs are expected to play an increasing role in block validation, with potential further major gas increases through 2030.
Buterin also flagged longer‑term ambitions for distributed block building to minimize central points of transaction inclusion and promote geographic fairness, though he said such features will take time to mature.