Vitalik Buterin made a proposal for an update that will deeply affect Ethereum (ETH)!

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced a new and striking proposal aimed at significantly improving the scalability and efficiency of Ethereum's execution layer, suggesting the idea of replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine with an open-source RISC-V architecture (EVM).

Buterin shared this concept in a blog post on the Ethereum Magicians forum and described it as a "radical" yet potentially necessary step to simplify and strengthen the network. The proposal coincides with the ongoing evolution of Ethereum following years of scalability upgrades and modular architecture experiments.

Buterin wrote, "The Beam Chain project holds great promise for significantly simplifying Ethereum's consensus layer" and added: "However, such a radical change may be the only viable way for the execution layer to achieve similar gains."

According to Buterin, transitioning to RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture, can reduce on-chain execution costs by up to 100 times in some scenarios. RISC-V is often compared to proprietary architectures like ARM and x86, but it stands out with its openness and flexibility, making it a potential game-changer for blockchain infrastructure.

Buterin emphasized backward compatibility, assuring the community that existing EVM contracts will remain fully functional and interoperable with the newly introduced RISC-V contracts. In addition to binary support options, the proposal also includes an interpreter that can convert EVM contracts to the RISC-V format.

This is not the first time RISC-V has been explored in the blockchain. In August 2023, Polkadot introduced PolkaVM, a virtual machine that supports multiple architectures including RISC-V. Buterin cited this model as an example of a less disruptive path that eliminates the need for a major hardfork.