From L2 to Data Availability: A Comprehensive Overview of Ethereum's Five Major Strategies

Based on the technological roadmap of Ethereum for the next two years, share several possible "technological breakthroughs" that may... provide support for the price (E Guardian exclusive):

1) zkEVM layer1 integration

Implementation timeline: Mainnet deployment to be completed from Q4 2025 to Q2 2026.

Technical Objectives:

-99% of blocks are validated within 10 seconds;

• The cost of zero-knowledge proof verification has been reduced by 80%;

Significance of implementation:

• The market share of stablecoins like USDC and USDT on the Ethereum main chain will further expand, leading to an increase in daily Gas consumption, which will directly promote ETH deflation;

-zkEVM zero-knowledge proof technology provides compliance and privacy protection for traditional financial institutions, and large-scale DeFi application scenarios for institutions are expected to be activated;

2) RISC-V executes new architecture

Implementation timeline: R&D will start in the second half of 2025, with a phased gradual advancement from 2026 to 2030.

Technical Objectives:

• The execution efficiency of smart contracts has improved by 3-5 times;

• Gas costs reduced by 50-70%;

• An open-source instruction set architecture to replace the current EVM, better compatible with modern hardware acceleration technologies;

Significance of implementation:

• The significant improvement in execution performance will give rise to entirely new application scenarios, such as: high-frequency trading, real-time gaming, AI inference, micro-payments, and micro-transactions;

• Lower gas costs will reactivate microtransaction scenarios, significantly expanding the user base and usage frequency, creating a positive cycle of ETH demand;

3) Layer1-Layer2 ecological synergy

Implementation timeline: Starting in Q4 2025, continuous optimization from 2026 to 2027;

Technical Objectives:

• Achieve seamless interoperability between L1 and major L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, etc.)

• The current decentralized liquidity is approximately 120 billion TVL, and the unified liquidity pool TVL has exceeded 200 billion USD.

• Cross-layer transaction costs reduced by 90%, achieving cross-layer confirmation within 10 seconds;

Significance of Implementation:

• DeFi protocols can more efficiently aggregate liquidity across the entire ecosystem (L1 + L2), creating a network effect where 1 + 1 > 2, significantly enhancing the capital efficiency and application experience of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

4) Validator Economic Optimization

Implementation timeline: Starting in the second half of 2025, synchronizing with various technology upgrades for continuous optimization, and improving over a period of 2 years;

Technical Objectives:

• The minimum staking threshold for validators is gradually reduced from 32 ETH to 16 ETH, and eventually down to 1 ETH;

• The annualized staking yield increases from the current 4-6% to 6-8%;

• Simplify the validator operation threshold, support lightweight node verification, and enhance the decentralization of the network.

Significance of Implementation:

• The reduction of validator thresholds and the optimization of yield models are expected to increase the ETH staking rate from the current approximately 25% to over 40% (about 48 million ETH locked), further reducing the circulating supply of ETH and strengthening deflationary expectations;

• Staking yield enhancement will increase the attractiveness of ETH as a "digital bond" and provide fundamental support for its valuation;

5) Sharding technology return (ETH 3.0)

Implementation timeline: Design and development will start in 2026, with realization in 2027-2028 or further out.

Technical Objective:

• Achieve millions of transactions per second by combining zkEVM and sharding;

• Data availability costs reduced by 99%;

• Distributing blockchain data across multiple shards, where validators only need to process a portion of the data;

Significance of Implementation:

• The reintroduction of sharding indicates that Ethereum is preparing for the large-scale adoption of Web3 in the next decade, and the aspiration of the "world computer" will be prioritized again.