Buterin said:
Even a smart high school student is capable of fully wrapping their head around and understanding the Bitcoin protocol. A programmer is capable of writing a client as a hobby project.
According to Buterin, protocol simplicity offers a variety of benefits that are crucial to ensuring that blockchain networks, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, remain a credibly neutral and globally trusted base layer. Meanwhile, it also reduces infrastructure costs, long-term maintenance expenses, and risks of bugs and malicious attacks.
Furthermore, Buterin mentioned the simplification of the execution layer, complaining about how the complexity of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has unnecessarily increased. To fix this, the crypto co-founder proposed replacing the EVM with a new minimal virtual machine (like RISC-V).
The co-founder noted:
The biggest challenge with meaningfully simplifying (or even improving without complexifying) any part of the EVM is how to balance accomplishing the desired goals with preserving backwards compatibility for existing applications.
Buterin concluded that simplicity is extremely similar to decentralization, which are both requisite in achieving resilience in blockchains.
While Buterin will be looking to make adjustments to the Ethereum network, ETH investors will hope that these enhancements will translate to the value of the Ether token. ETH’s performance has been quite underwhelming so far in 2025, registering four red months to start the year.
