Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims that Ethereum has “solved” one of the biggest challenges in cryptocurrency: the blockchain trilemma.
In Saturday’s post, X Buterin he emphasized the potential for peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) and Ethereum zero-knowledge virtual machines (ZK-EVM), noting that these two updates make Ethereum “a fundamentally new and more powerful type of decentralized network.”
“Now Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVM (expect small parts of the network to use it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high throughput,” he said, adding:
“The trilemma has been solved – not on paper, but with working code, half of which (data availability sampling) is *on the mainnet today* and the other half (ZK-EVM) is *today’s production quality vs. performance* – security is what remains.
PeerDas is a scalability improvement introduced in Fusaka’s December update that allows Ethereum to handle much more data.
Meanwhile, ZKEVMs, which have been around for some time, are virtual machines that are compatible with both the ZK proof and the existing Ethereum virtual machine.
The Ethereum co-founder said that ZKEVMs are still in the “alpha phase” as they are ready to increase performance but require additional security improvements. He gave a four-year timeline for ZKEVM to be fully utilized and run sufficiently on Ethereum.
When this happens, Buterin says the vision of resolving the trilemma will be officially realized.
“Over the next ~4 years, we can expect full implementation of this vision: * In 2026, there will be large, ZKEVM-independent gas limit increases due to BAL and ePBS, and we will also see the first opportunities to launch the ZKEVM node*,” he said.
“From 2026 to 2028, there will be another increase in gas prices, changes in the state structure, a transfer of execution payload to blobs and other adjustments to ensure the security of higher gas limits. * In 2027-30, there will be a further significant increase in gas limits as ZKEVM becomes the main way to validate blocks on the network,” he added.
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It took Ethereum 10 years to solve the trilemma
Buterin said it took 10 years of solid work to get Ethereum to the point where it could solve this trilemma, as he pointed to his first post on solving data availability issues in April 2017.
“It was a 10-year journey […] but it’s finally here,” he said.
The blockchain trilemma refers to the complexity of building a blockchain network that sufficiently provides decentralization, security, and scalability simultaneously, without one pillar hindering the other.
Generally speaking, most blockchains are forced to prioritize one or two of these pillars, such as speed and security, in the early stages as they gradually work to achieve a balance of all three.
In his post, Buterin cited Bitcoin as an example, noting that the network was designed to be “highly decentralized” and secure, but suffers from scalability.
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