Vitalik Buterin Encourages The Sustainability Of Ethereum Consensus Minimism

The Ethereum consensus is a process in which the blocks are validated through a proof-of-stake mechanism. (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a long blog post. It warns of the dangers of "spreading" Ethereum consensus exceeding its core function in validating blocks and maintaining network security.

The Ethereum consensus is a process in which the blocks are validated through a proof-of-stake mechanism implemented in September 2022 with "The Merge".

In a blog post entitled "Don't Burden Ethereum Consensus" published on May 21, Buterin warned that using the Ethereum network consensus for other things could lead to a "high systemic risk to the ecosystem and should be avoided and rejected."

The Ethereum co-founder basically encourages the maintenance of blockchain minimism.

Buterin noted that over the years, there have been a number of proposals or ideas suggesting the use of Ethereum social consensus for other purposes, such as price and data oracles, re-stating initiatives, and using a soft fork layer-1 to restore layer-2 projects if experiencing problems.

"There is a natural tendency to try to expand the blockchain core with more functionality as the blockchain core has the largest economic weight and the largest community watching it, but every such expansion makes the core itself more fragile," he said, quoted by Cointelegraph.

Buterin said that a group of these techniques could carry a "high systemic risk" to the ecosystem, such as bugs or intentional 51% attacks.

Several high-risk examples include creating an ETH/USD price oracle where ETH holders or validators can be bribed to vote, which could result in "foreks that remove poor participants' money" in the event of a dispute.

However, he acknowledged the need for a better oracle and proposed a case-by-case approach because these different issues were "inherently very different" from each other.

Overall, Buterin said that any expansion of the Ethereum consensus "tasks" increases costs, complexity, and risks in carrying out validators.

The application layer project "which takes action that increases the 'envelope' of blockchain consensus for things other than verifying core Ethereum protocol rules" should be treated with caution, he said, summarizing:

"On the other hand, we have to maintain chain minimism, support the use of re-stating that doesn't look like slippery slopes to expand the role of Ethereum consensus, and help developers find alternative strategies to achieve their security goals," he added.

The Ethereum consensus mechanism switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in September last year. In addition, the Ethereum that has been staked can just be withdrawn with the Shapella upgrade on April 12.