Vitalik Buterin maps Ethereum’s shift beyond a blockchain in sweeping 2030 vision

In a post titled “The cryptographic world computer,” Buterin described a system combining a blockchain with cryptographic proofs and networks of computers working outside it. The plan through 2030 would change both how much Ethereum can do and what users can independently verify.

Ethereum already lets people send money, trade tokens and borrow through applications that run according to shared rules. The difficulty is making those applications serve more people without making the network too expensive to use or too demanding to check.

Today, a computer fully checking Ethereum repeats the calculations behind its transactions. It checks, for example, that someone sending money had enough to spend and that an application did what its rules allowed.

Repeating that work across many computers helps keep the network honest. It also means adding computers does not automatically let Ethereum handle more transactions, because each is busy checking much of the same activity.