Buterin says Ethereum may be more than a blockchain in 2030

Vitalik Buterin said Sunday that Ethereum may still be called a blockchain in 2030 but work very differently from today. He described the vision in a post titled "The cryptographic world computer." The system would combine a blockchain with cryptographic proofs and networks of computers working outside it. The plan would change Ethereum's capacity and what users can independently verify. Ethereum currently lets people send money, trade tokens and borrow through applications that follow shared rules. Those applications must serve more people without making Ethereum too expensive to use or too difficult to check. A computer that fully checks Ethereum repeats the calculations behind its transactions. The checks include whether a sender had enough money and whether an application followed its rules. Repeating the work across many computers helps keep the network honest. Adding computers does not automatically increase Ethereum's transaction capacity because each computer checks much of the same activity. Buterin argues that newer cryptographic tools can remove this constraint. He said the transformation would accelerate after the planned Hegotá upgrade. Developers must make proofs cheaper and coordinate parallel work securely.