Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Sunday that the network he envisions for 2030 may still be called a blockchain, but it would work very differently from today’s version. In a post titled “The cryptographic world computer,” Buterin outlined a shift away from the current model where every computer repeats the same transaction calculations to verify network integrity.
Instead, Buterin proposed combining Ethereum’s blockchain with cryptographic proofs and off-chain computers to process more transactions without requiring every participant to perform identical work. “Back then, this was not viable for one primary reason: the missing ingredient was verification,” Buterin said, referring to earlier eras when such an approach lacked the mathematical tools to confirm correctness.
The transformation would introduce privacy improvements alongside scalability gains. Buterin’s plan includes hiding wallet balance queries and payment details alongside transaction information, similar to privacy features already available on other networks. Zcash, for example, already offers encrypted addresses and amounts through its shielded pools, which held 4.9 million ZEC as of Friday.
Buterin identified the Hegotá upgrade, planned for next year, as a critical inflection point. “Starting after Hegota, this transformation becomes Ethereum’s primary story,” he said. Hegotá is described as Ethereum’s last “normal” fork using familiar 2015-era technology; subsequent upgrades would rely on mathematical proofs and quantum-resistant security instead.
Under the 2030 vision, payment finality would occur within 8 to 32 seconds, according to Buterin’s post. The shift would enable faster verification than repeating original calculations, since other computers could confirm mathematical proofs more quickly than redoing the work themselves.
Buterin emphasized the scope of the change: “The final outcome of this: much more cheap, scalable and private high-security computation than anything that could be done with the previous era’s technology alone.”
Other projects are pursuing similar privacy goals. Researchers published a paper proposing Zcash-style privacy for Bitcoin, suggesting the cryptographic approach Buterin describes has broader applicability across blockchain networks.
