Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Proposes Radical Shift to Rescue Network Performance

Ethereum is staring down stiff competition, and co-founder Vitalik Buterin has a radical idea to keep the network in the race: rethink the very codebase that powers smart contracts.

Ethereum is encountering stiff competition, and co-founder Vitalik Buterin has a radical idea to keep the network in the race: rethink the very codebase that powers smart contracts.

Instead of sticking with the familiar Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Buterin is proposing a shift to RISC-V—a flexible, open-source instruction set architecture more commonly found in hardware development.

This potential move isn’t just a technical curiosity, as Buterin sees it as a strategic response to Ethereum’s current limits. With next-gen chains like Solana and Sui outperforming Ethereum on speed and throughput, and investor confidence dipping, a dramatic change may be the only way forward. He argues that upgrading Ethereum’s execution layer with RISC-V could supercharge performance, especially for zero-knowledge applications and future-proofing block production mechanisms.

While the consensus layer is on track for simplification via innovations like beam chains, the execution layer, Buterin warns, remains a bottleneck. RISC-V could offer the low-level efficiency and flexibility Ethereum needs to scale—potentially unlocking 100-fold improvements in computational performance.

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But it’s not just the tech that’s under pressure. Ethereum’s economics are weakening. Transaction fee revenues have plummeted, with some weeks generating as little as 3 ETH in blob fees—down to roughly $5,000—despite once being a major source of income for the network. By April 2025, the average cost of a transaction had fallen to just $0.16, levels not seen since 2020.

Behind the drop is a shift in user behavior. Instead of executing simple transactions on the base layer, users are flocking to layer-2 ecosystems or relying on smart contracts, bypassing Ethereum’s traditional fee model. As a result, layer-2 networks—though essential for reducing costs—are now eating into Ethereum’s core revenue.

Some market watchers believe this trend is hurting more than helping. As fees dry up and questions emerge about Ethereum’s long-term competitiveness, Ether’s price has taken a hit, with projections suggesting a potential slide toward $1,100 if sentiment continues to deteriorate.

Buterin’s call for a deeper architectural overhaul may be Ethereum’s attempt to reset the playing field—before performance, revenue, and relevance slip even further.