Ethereum (ETH-USD) is stirring up excitement in the blockchain world with a new proposal that promises to revolutionize its scalability. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake teased an “ambitious” initiative on Nov. 11, fueling speculation about the potential for ETH 3.0. This could be the long-awaited solution to Ethereum’s scalability challenges. According to Drake, the goal is to propose a strategy to finalize the Beacon Chain roadmap, with full details expected to be revealed at Devcon in Bangkok on Nov. 12. If his proposal goes as planned, it could mark a major step forward for Ethereum’s capabilities.
Sharding May Return to Ethereum’s Core
As the Ethereum community speculates, ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin added fuel to the conversation by suggesting that Drake’s ideas might involve reviving the concept of sharding. “A few years ago, execution sharding wasn’t really possible, but now it might be,” Lubin explained in an interview with Cointelegraph. Sharding, a method of splitting blockchain data into smaller parts, was previously sidelined due to technical limitations. However, advancements in zero-knowledge (zk) technology could now make this process feasible. Lubin said that if successful, sharding could significantly improve Ethereum’s scalability, possibly enabling millions of transactions per second (TPS).
Despite the optimism, Lubin tempered expectations, warning that such ambitious goals could take years to achieve. “If you do that every two seconds or less, then you get a lot of transactions per second,” he noted. It’s a bold vision, but as Lubin suggests, technical challenges remain before Ethereum can reach this scale.
Community Reacts to Drake’s Proposal and Hypes ETH 3.0
Following Drake’s teaser, rumors of an ETH 3.0 upgrade began circulating rapidly. One of the more intriguing speculations involves a native zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM). Doug Colkitt, founder of Ambient Finance, believes that this could eliminate gas limits and allow for arbitrarily large blocks without overburdening Ethereum nodes. Colkitt called a zkEVM upgrade a “huge” potential breakthrough, suggesting it could do away with the need for rollups.
However, not everyone in the Ethereum community agrees. Some critics dismiss the rumors as “100% BS,” pointing out that such major updates are typically preceded by Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and other formal announcements.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is sitting at $3,302.02.
