Vitalik Praises Lean Ethereum Team Progress on Long-Term Scaling Roadmap

“The Lean Ethereum workforce has been doing a very wonderful job kicking into gear this 12 months, and delivering on all fronts to make sure Ethereum’s long-term scaling, decentralization, and resilience,” mentioned Vitalik on Sunday.

He added that he expects all of those concepts to be able to kick into gear at roughly the identical time because the short-term scaling roadmap delivers on its key milestones.

Lean Ethereum is a minimal zkVM (zero-knowledge digital machine) proposal from builders meant to offer a recursion-friendly digital machine for ZK-proofs. Primarily, it’s a stripped-down, extra environment friendly model of Ethereum’s computing engine.

Ethereum Scaling Roadmap

Vitalik explains that LeanVM is designed to combine safely with mainnet operations.

“The purpose is that the Lean roadmap lags behind the short-term scaling milestones in order that ideally the previous is able to go precisely as soon as the latter is all on mainnet,” he mentioned.

The lean Ethereum workforce has been doing a very wonderful job kicking into gear this 12 months, and delivering on all fronts to make sure Ethereum’s long-term scaling, decentralization and resilience.

I anticipate all of those concepts can be able to kick into gear at roughly the identical time as… https://t.co/4uimhAZI5N

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 6, 2025

Builders are deliberately making the “lean” enhancements lag behind the rapid scaling options, so every thing is able to work collectively seamlessly.

In response to the Lean Roadmap, the specs are nonetheless being ironed out, constructing will begin in 2026, and testing will begin in 2027. The long-term imaginative and prescient is to finish the roadmap in 4-5 years so Ethereum can go into “upkeep mode.”

LeanVM is predicted to cut back prices for large-scale computations, velocity up recursion for ZK-proof computations, and keep community decentralization and safety.

The subsequent main improve for the Ethereum mainnet is “Fusaka,” which is slated for November. The improve focuses on making Ethereum extra environment friendly for layer-2 rollups whereas enhancing the bottom layer’s efficiency and accessibility.

Protocols Are Works of Artwork

Vitalik additionally talks about protocols being “artistic endeavors” with minimal code, emphasizing that blockchains ought to be elegant and easy, not messy patches that accumulate over time.

“Protocols usually are not a grimy get-it-out-there factor that you simply vibe-code, the place you settle for everlasting accumulating rubbish within the identify of short-term comfort. Protocols are a murals. They need to look as such.”

Ethereum has been criticized for its lack of scaling and gradual improvement in comparison with rival blockchains. Nevertheless, proponents declare it’s higher to be gradual and thorough with 100% uptime than to hurry out a quicker blockchain that’s plagued with reliability issues.