Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced on January 3 that the network has reached a major milestone in solving the long-discussed “blockchain trilemma.” The achievement comes as Ethereum successfully brings both PeerDAS and zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (ZK-EVM) technologies into practical use on the mainnet.
The blockchain trilemma—coined by Buterin—refers to the difficulty of achieving decentralization, security, and scalability all at once. Until now, most blockchain systems had to compromise on at least one of these principles. Buterin said the newest technological integrations represent a real breakthrough rather than just theoretical progress. “Ethereum is now running live code that demonstrates full decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth at the same time,” he noted in a post on X.
PeerDAS and ZK-EVM Go Live
PeerDAS, officially activated on December 3, 2025, as part of Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade, allows validators to confirm blob data without downloading entire blocks. Instead, they verify small samples of the data, maintaining security while enabling significantly greater capacity. The Ethereum Foundation said this innovation lets the network scale data throughput without increasing hardware demands for individual nodes.
Alongside this, ZK-EVMs have reached production-grade efficiency. Proof generation has accelerated from 16 minutes to just 16 seconds—an improvement that makes real-time validation feasible and dramatically lowers computing costs. According to development teams, ZK-EVM systems can now verify nearly all Ethereum mainnet blocks in under 10 seconds on standard hardware.
Buterin explained how this step resolves an underlying limitation of previous designs. Earlier systems such as BitTorrent had strong decentralization and bandwidth but lacked consensus, while Bitcoin achieved consensus and security but sacrificed scalability. “Ethereum now integrates all three—decentralization, verification, and high throughput,” Buterin said.
Looking Ahead: Ethereum’s Roadmap to 2030
Ethereum’s development roadmap outlines a gradual rollout of new capabilities through 2030. The next phase, in 2026, will increase the network’s gas limit from 60 million to 80 million, supported by upgrades like BALs and ePBS. These adjustments, scheduled soon after the January 7 blob parameter update, will operate independently from ZK-EVM requirements.
From 2026 to 2028, Ethereum’s technical upgrades will include gas repricing, improved state structures, and migration of execution payloads into blobs. Between 2027 and 2030, ZK-EVM validation is expected to become the standard approach for Ethereum block verification, allowing additional scaling advances and lower transaction fees.
Buterin added that distributed block building remains a long-term goal. Future systems like expanded FOCIL or distributed builder marketplaces could prevent blocks from being constructed in one centralized location, improving fairness, reducing latency, and strengthening Ethereum’s global resilience.
Photo Credit: by TechCrunch ( CC BY 2.0.)
