How to evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal for simplifying L1?

By: Haotian

A friend asked me how to evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal to simplify L1. Honestly, you can interpret it however you like—crypto's technical narrative has truly reached a point where it's all about the "faith" of holders. If you don't believe me, here are two contrasting takes—one “negative” and one “positive”:

The critic’s take—Making Ethereum as simple as Bitcoin signals the failure of Ethereum’s universal world computer strategy:

This article shows that Vitalik has finally admitted Ethereum must change course from its long-standing obsession with complexity. This so-called “lightweighting” movement essentially declares that the vision he once promoted—the “world computer”—has become an unattainable holy grail of crypto.

Replacing EVM with RISC-V may seem like a systematic overhaul and technological upgrade on the surface, but in reality, it marks the complete failure of the previous rollup-centric Layer 2 grand strategy. While Solana attracts massive user attention through its clean architecture and purely commercialized meme-driven tactics, Ethereum is still struggling with interoperability across hundreds of L2s. This isn’t strategic optimization—it’s more like forced self-amputation to survive.

As the second most consensus-backed chain in crypto, when a legacy chain can no longer compete with newer ones on performance and suddenly tries to assert relevance by comparing itself to Bitcoin, it clearly reflects strategic retreat. It’s hard to imagine that after a decade of technological evolution, the final answer is “learn from Bitcoin and simplify.” Remember, the idea that chains should be “simple” was already written into code by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009.

And just like that, the next-generation general-purpose computing platform that once aimed to revolutionize the internet and move the entire web onto blockchain quietly fades away—without leaving a trace.

The fan’s take—Ethereum finally embraces simplicity, securely supporting everything through a new “modular” mindset:

As I’ve written in multiple previous articles, Vitalik’s proposal signifies that the blockchain industry has shifted from broad, winner-takes-all competition to deep, collaborative optimization strategies. It means Ethereum is finally stepping down from its ivory tower of pure technical idealism and genuinely embracing market-oriented community needs.

Replacing EVM with RISC-V will sound the starting horn for infrastructure innovation centered on “ZK narratives + modularity,” allowing Ethereum to rejuvenate itself with a fresh technological story.

A potential 100x performance boost means Ethereum can continue ensuring security while offering stronger foundational support for the Layer 2 ecosystem. Previously constrained by the sprawling L2 landscape, a revitalized L1—repositioned as a “secure consensus layer”—can now directly compete with other Layer 1s while avoiding being drained or dragged down by reckless L2 upstarts.

“Learning from Bitcoin” isn’t surrendering complexity out of weakness; it’s paying homage to the first-principles philosophy of “security above all.” Bitcoin has already proven this path works. With the new modular approach, Ethereum’s L1 can focus solely on secure settlement, while granting L2s full freedom to innovate.

This ecosystem structure—seemingly hands-off yet spiritually guiding—will prove over time to be the most efficient.

From a macro perspective, while high-performance Layer 1 competitors like Solana keep chasing single metrics for showmanship, Ethereum is already positioning itself for the next decade—not to compute everything, but to securely carry everything. Because after several market cycles, the real winners among public chains haven’t been those with superior performance, but those with “stability”—and stability begins with simplicity.

See? Ethereum’s biggest current issue is “divided consensus.” There’s certainly a large group of hardcore tech believers, but the growing army of critics who have turned hostile is becoming louder too.

But in truth, whether Ethereum is good or bad depends entirely on your perspective. The reality is simply this: because you “believe,” you see opportunity; because you “don’t believe,” you only see collapse.