Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a series of articles discussing the future of Ethereum, including the “Merge,” “Surge,” and “Scourge” upgrades. In his latest article, Vitalik elaborated on the vision and goals of the “Verge” phase.
The goals of the Verge phase include implementing statelessness clients and Merkle Trees, which are mathematical proofs that will address the high storage requirements when running a full node on the blockchain. In an article published on Wednesday, Vitalik stated:
“SNARKs can allow one party to prove to another that they possess certain information without revealing the information itself. These cryptographic techniques also enable complex computations to be quickly verified on the chain.”
Looking towards the long term, Vitalik believes that the main goal of Ethereum in the Verge phase is to enable complete blockchain verification, including the consensus layer and execution layer, on low-performance devices such as smartwatches. He mentioned, “Download some data, verify a SNARK, done.”
The developer community still needs to discuss the best way to achieve stateless verification and whether it still involves Merkle Trees or STARKs (similar to SNARKs but addressing certain limitations of the proof system). Vitalik stated that it would take several more years to have a proof of stake consensus that is effective for Ethereum. In the long run, “STARK-friendliness needs to become the primary consideration in the long-term redesign of Ethereum’s proof of stake consensus.”
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