Ethereum Milestone! Vitalik Buterin announces successful breakthrough of the blockchain "trilemma," breaking through the technical bottleneck

The peak transaction speed of the Ethereum network has reached 238.1 transactions per second, compared to the early network performance of about 15 transactions per second. This marks a nearly 16-fold increase in Ethereum’s processing capacity within just ten years. Behind all this is Vitalik Buterin’s announced solution to the “Blockchain Trilemma,” which is no longer just theoretical but has been implemented through actual running code.

The Decade-Long Blockchain Dilemma

The blockchain field has long faced a theoretical challenge known as the “Trilemma.” Coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, it refers to the nearly impossible task of building a blockchain network that is simultaneously decentralized, secure, and scalable. In simple terms, most blockchains in their early stages had to make trade-offs among these three aspects. Bitcoin achieved decentralization and security but has limited transaction capacity, processing about seven transactions per second.

Other speed-focused networks often sacrificed decentralization or security. These trade-offs have limited the large-scale adoption and proliferation of blockchain technology, becoming a significant bottleneck for industry development.

Technical Breakthroughs and Performance Leap

Ethereum’s solution to the trilemma centers on two key technologies: PeerDAS and ZK-EVM. According to Vitalik Buterin’s latest statement, these technologies are either already live on the mainnet or have reached production-level performance.

PeerDAS, or Peer Data Availability Sampling, was launched on the mainnet with the Fusaka hard fork on December 3, 2025. This technology fundamentally changes how Ethereum verifies data. Previously, validators needed to download entire data blocks for validation, but now they only need to check randomly sampled portions to verify data availability.

ZK-EVM, or Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, has also entered the Alpha stage with production-level performance. ZK-EVM can achieve faster transaction validation through cryptographic proofs without revealing underlying data. The performance improvement is significant: block validation time has dropped from 16 minutes to just 16 seconds, a 60-fold increase. Costs have been reduced by 45 times, and on targeted hardware, 99% of Ethereum blocks can now be validated within 10 seconds.

Technical Architecture and Implementation Principles

The implementation of PeerDAS is quite innovative. It uses Reed-Solomon erasure coding to split data into 128 columns, distributed across specific network subnets. Each validator subscribes to at least eight randomly selected column subnets, receiving only partial data while still maintaining network security. This approach allows validators to check only one-sixteenth of the data instead of downloading the entire dataset, thereby increasing the network’s theoretical scalability by eight times without overburdening individual nodes.

The underlying principle of ZK-EVM is even more complex. Zero-knowledge proof systems can verify the correctness of program execution—including the validity of inputs and outputs—without revealing the actual data processed. This technology emerged around 2020 after years of theoretical research. Vitalik Buterin vividly compares this combination to a perfect blend of BitTorrent and Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism. BitTorrent offers massive bandwidth and decentralization but lacks a consensus mechanism; Bitcoin provides decentralization and consensus but with lower bandwidth. Now, Ethereum combines PeerDAS and ZK-EVM to achieve decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth simultaneously.

Ethereum Ecosystem and Market Impact

The technological breakthroughs are fueling the thriving development of the Ethereum ecosystem. Layer 2 networks built on Ethereum, through the Rollup ecosystem, can process approximately 4,000 transactions per second. These scaling solutions benefit directly from PeerDAS, reducing costs and improving data availability.

Institutional adoption is accelerating. Currently, over 66% of tokenized real-world assets are on Ethereum. Major financial institutions like BlackRock and JPMorgan have deployed tokenization tools on the Ethereum network. Meanwhile, Ethereum continues to solidify its leadership in real-world asset tokenization, holding about 65% of this niche market with a value exceeding $19 billion. In stablecoin issuance, the Ethereum network has issued stablecoins worth $170 billion.

Market Data and Price Dynamics

According to the latest data from the Gate platform, as of January 7, 2026, the spot price of ETH/USDT on Gate is $3,268.09, with a 24-hour change of +1.39%. The perpetual contract price for ETH/USDT is $3,267.22, with a 24-hour change of +1.38%. Circulating supply of Ethereum is currently 120,694,861.17 ETH. The network has over 11,000 validators and has been running continuously for ten years, demonstrating its large-scale reliability.

Blockchain data analysis shows that Ethereum activity remains high. In Q4 2025, on-chain transfers of stablecoins hit a new record, exceeding $8 trillion. The stablecoin supply on Ethereum grew from $127 billion to $181 billion in 2025, an increase of about 43%.

Future Roadmap and Challenges

Despite significant breakthroughs, Ethereum’s development roadmap extends to 2030. According to Vitalik Buterin’s outlook, in 2026, the Ethereum network will significantly increase the Gas limit through bandwidth allocation limits and will officially introduce a proposer-builder separation mechanism. The block Gas limit was raised from 450,000 units at the end of 2025 to 600,000 units. From 2027 to 2030, ZK-EVM will become the primary method for validating Ethereum blocks. This transition will further increase the Gas limit while maintaining decentralization and security.

Security remains a top priority. The Ethereum Foundation announced on December 18, 2025, that security will be the main focus of zkEVM development in 2026. The foundation set three key milestones, requiring teams to achieve 128-bit provable security by the end of the year.

The number of daily active addresses on the Ethereum network continues to rise, and on-chain stablecoin transfer volume surpassed $8 trillion in Q4 last year, setting a new record. Over 11,000 validator nodes are distributed worldwide, silently safeguarding this decentralized network that has been running for ten years. The breakthrough of the blockchain trilemma is not just a technical milestone; it means Ethereum can now process large-scale transactions, ensure asset security, and maintain decentralization simultaneously. While other blockchains are still balancing these three aspects, Ethereum has built the infrastructure for the next phase. This is no longer just theoretical discussion but a reality implemented in mainnet code.