How is the Ethereum paradox broken? The answers from PeerDAS and ZK-EVM

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently posted on social platform X stating that the long-standing core paradox in the blockchain industry—the challenge of simultaneously achieving “decentralization,” “security,” and “scalability”—has made substantial breakthroughs. He emphasized that this is not just theoretical but is being realized through code running on the mainnet. After recent upgrades, Ethereum has been revitalized, becoming a network that truly combines security, decentralization, and high bandwidth.

The Eternal Paradox and Breakthrough Path of Blockchain

The so-called paradox refers to the difficulty of achieving all three core elements simultaneously in blockchain design. Typically, increasing transaction speed (scalability) often requires sacrificing decentralization; conversely, maintaining a highly decentralized network is limited by performance constraints or high costs, making large-scale expansion difficult. This long-standing dilemma has troubled the industry for over a decade.

Vitalik Buterin contrasted Ethereum’s technological progress with early decentralized networks, revealing the evolution of this paradox:

BitTorrent (2000): Achieved high decentralization and massive bandwidth but lacked a consensus mechanism, making it impossible to reach agreement among untrusted nodes.

Bitcoin (2009): Established a decentralized and secure consensus mechanism, but due to the use of “repeated execution” rather than “distributed processing” in computations, transaction throughput was limited.

Ethereum’s approach: Through a layered architecture, separating data availability, execution, and validation, attempting to address all three elements simultaneously.

From Data Sampling to Zero-Knowledge Proofs: The Technical Chess Game

Vitalik Buterin explicitly pointed out that two key technologies currently advancing are gradually resolving this paradox. One is PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling), already live on the mainnet, and the other is ZK-EVM (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine), which has achieved production-level performance and is slated for partial adoption in 2026.

The innovation of PeerDAS lies in enabling verification nodes to confirm the existence of transaction data by sampling only a small portion, without downloading the entire block. This breakthrough significantly lowers the barrier to running nodes, allowing more participants to become validators and directly strengthening network decentralization. The plan is to have this technology enable Ethereum to reach a throughput of 12,000 transactions per second (TPS) by 2026.

ZK-EVM, on the other hand, uses zero-knowledge proof technology to verify blocks without re-executing all computations, instead providing cryptographic proofs of correctness. This not only greatly enhances performance but also allows for unlimited scalability while maintaining security.

Ethereum’s 2026: The Beginning of the Scalability Era

According to Vitalik Buterin’s scalability blueprint, the next three years will be a critical turning point:

2026 is a pivotal year. Ethereum will significantly increase the Gas limit without relying on ZK-EVM, and will open the first ZK-EVM nodes, marking the official launch of zero-knowledge proof verification.

2026 to 2028, Ethereum will face Gas re-pricing, state structure updates, and the gradual migration of execution load to the Blobs storage layer. Under higher Gas limits, system security verification will become a core task.

2027 to 2030, as ZK-EVM gradually becomes the standard for verification, Ethereum’s Gas limit will grow geometrically. By then, the paradox will no longer be a constraint but will be thoroughly resolved.

Market Performance and Technical Confidence Gap

Despite positive technical news, market performance tells a different story. According to the latest data, ETH is currently priced around $3,020, with a 24-hour increase of 1.96%. Compared to the peak of $4,950 last summer, there is still about a 39% decline.

This gap between price and technological progress is not uncommon. The market often takes longer to digest the long-term value brought by technological breakthroughs. When PeerDAS’s impact becomes evident in 2026 and ZK-EVM verification gradually becomes standard, this technical confidence will ultimately translate into market consensus. Fundamentally, Ethereum has provided a feasible path to solving the blockchain paradox, and the realization of this solution has only just begun.