Vitalik's vision for the expansion of Ethereum: a two-phase strategy

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, has outlined a comprehensive strategic vision for network expansion. His approach features an ambitious two-phase plan aimed at solving scalability challenges while maintaining the platform’s stability and economic flexibility.

Short-term Approach: Glamsterdam and Multidimensional Gas Optimization

The immediate expansion phase mainly relies on the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. Vitalik details several key improvements for this step. First, implementing access lists at the block level will significantly speed up block validation by reducing redundant operations. Next, the ePBS (encrypted Proposer-Builder Separation) mechanism will allow more time for critical validations, preventing performance bottlenecks.

The core of this phase is the introduction of multidimensional gas. This innovative system differentiates resource consumption based on their nature—particularly separating state creation costs from standard operation costs. This crucial distinction means that gas used for state creation does not count toward the standard block gas limit, enabling larger smart contract deployments without compromising network balance.

To ensure backward compatibility, Ethereum will retain old functionalities via a “reservoir” mechanism. This clever technical solution ensures that sub-calls and gas-related operations continue to function according to their established parameters, preserving the existing developer experience.

Compatibility and Evolution: The EVM Reservoir Mechanism

Beyond immediate performance gains, this approach addresses a core issue: state bloat. By separating state creation costs, Ethereum directly tackles one of the main sources of network inefficiency. The gradual transition to multidimensional gas ensures long-term economic sustainability without sacrificing operational flexibility.

Long-term Horizon: ZK-EVM and the Blob Revolution

Beyond short-term improvements, Ethereum’s architecture will evolve toward ZK-EVM (Zero-Knowledge EVM) and blob technologies. These innovations go beyond incremental upgrades to open new scalability paradigms. Thanks to PeerDAS and other iterative enhancements, blobs could achieve data availability of 8 MB/s—an exponential increase compared to current capabilities.

This dramatic increase would enable direct verification of block data without full downloads, drastically reducing the computational requirements for nodes. The gradual shift toward these technologies cements Vitalik’s long-term vision for Ethereum: a scalable, resilient, and economically sustainable ecosystem.