- Vitalik Buterin claimed that the solution to the blockchain trilemma is already coded into Ethereum.
- The chain has already implemented half of the fix to the old system, with the remaining components scheduled for a gradual rollout.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), boldly stated that the latest Fusaka upgrade has solved the blockchain trilemma. He said that the progress marks the latest evolution in the industry, turning Ethereum into a “more powerful kind of decentralized network.”
The Blockchain Trilemma
The blockchain trilemma comprises the fundamental engineering challenges that a blockchain must regularly contend with. It involves a scenario in which its network can optimize only two of its three key properties at once. These include the following:
- Security: Ensuring the chain’s resilience against attacks and the capability to maintain an immutable ledger.
- Scalability: Maintaining the system’s ability to process a high volume of transactions per second (TPS) without performance issues, downtime, or high fees.
- Decentralization: Securing the network’s distribution of control across participants to wrest control from a single entity.
In short, blockchains prioritize just two of the three elements mentioned. For instance, Bitcoin (BTC) is a highly secure and decentralized chain, but struggles to scale. The same conditions existed in the old version of Ethereum due to gas-fee bottlenecks, hardware limitations, and transaction congestion during high-traffic periods.
The Evolution of Ethereum
Buterin explained that Ethereum’s integration of zkEVM (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) and PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling) creates a network with decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth. Note that zkEVM is still in its early adoption phase, while the chain implemented PeerDAS only in December 2025 during the Fusaka rollout.
“The trilemma has been solved—not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is *on mainnet today*, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is *production-quality on performance today*—safety is what remains,” posted Buterin on X.
The zkEVM solution batches rollups into a zero-knowledge proof before execution. This reduces transactions into small data pieces, allowing nodes to verify them as a single proof to prevent network congestion. In addition to enhancing the scalability and security of blockchains, it paves the way for privacy-friendly, high-performance applications.
Meanwhile, PeerDAS lets the chain handle more data. Buterin previously emphasized that Layer 2s (L2s) on Ethereum will mainly benefit from the upgrade, with its advantages eventually scaling to the mainnet. It increases the amount of data L2s can send to the network, initially raising capacity by 8 times from its maximum capacity of 9 blobs per block, without increasing hardware requirements for users or compromising the system’s accessibility and decentralization.
Buterin envisions a gradual transition that will result in significantly lower gas fees, enhanced infrastructure, and further performance improvements for Ethereum over the coming years.
