Vitalik Buterin Proposes RISC-V Upgrade to Boost Ethereum’s Efficiency

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a bold change to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), suggesting it be replaced with the RISC-V instruction set architecture. The aim is to significantly improve execution speed and efficiency across the Ethereum network.

In his April 20 post, Buterin highlighted key long-term scalability challenges such as data availability sampling, maintaining competitive block production, and enabling efficient zero-knowledge (ZK) proof generation. He believes RISC-V could help tackle these hurdles, particularly by enhancing ZK functions and keeping the network’s block production market dynamic.

Buterin shows numbers suggesting that implementing the proposal could lead to efficiency gains of 100x. Source: Vitalik Buterin

“The beam chain initiative could greatly simplify Ethereum’s consensus layer,” Buterin wrote. “But to see similar breakthroughs on the execution layer, we may need to embrace fundamental changes like this.”

The proposal comes at a time when Ethereum faces growing competition from faster monolithic blockchains like Solana and Sui. Buterin estimates that integrating RISC-V could result in up to 100x efficiency gains.

Meanwhile, Ethereum is also struggling with declining user activity and fees. Blob fees from layer-2 networks dropped to just 3.18 ETH (about $5,000) during the week of March 30. Average transaction fees have hit their lowest since 2020, down to $0.16 per transaction as of April 2025.

Brian Quinlivan, marketing director at Santiment, attributes this drop to users shifting activity to layer-2 solutions instead of the base layer. While this has slashed costs, it has also reduced the Ethereum base layer’s revenue, raising concerns about its long-term sustainability.

With Ether trading at historically low levels and investor sentiment wavering, analysts warn that further declines to around $1,100 could occur if confidence continues to fall.