A friend asked me how to evaluate Vitalik Buterin's latest proposal to simplify L1. Honestly, it can be viewed in various ways; the current narrative in the crypto technology space has truly reached a point where it’s a competition of holders' "faith." If you don’t believe me, I can provide both "black" and "red" versions of the evaluation:

Black Version — Making Ethereum as simple as Bitcoin signifies the failure of Ethereum's universal world computer strategy:

This article highlights that Vitalik is finally willing to admit that Ethereum's past obsession with "complexity" needs to be adjusted. The essence of this "slimming down" campaign directly declares that the boast Vitalik made years ago — "world computer" — has become an unattainable crypto holy grail.

Replacing the EVM with RISC-V may superficially seem like a systematic overhaul and technological upgrade, but in reality, it equals the complete failure of the previous layer2 Rollup-Centric grand strategy. While Solana attracts a large number of users with its simple architecture and purely commercial MEME tactics, Ethereum is still entangled in how to manage the interoperability of hundreds of L2s. Rather than being a proactive optimization strategy, it is more like a forced self-mutilation for survival.

As an old chain with the second consensus in the crypto world, when it can no longer compete with new chains in terms of performance, and suddenly one day relies on its seniority to place itself alongside Bitcoin for presence, it is clearly a strategic contraction. It is hard to imagine that after 10 years of technological development, the final answer is "learn from Bitcoin to simplify." It should be noted that the conclusion of returning the chain to "simplification" was already written in code by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009.

And the revolutionary ambition to "internet" that aimed to move the entire internet onto a blockchain-based next-generation universal computing platform has thus perished, leaving no trace behind.

Red Version — Ethereum finally simplifies complexity, safely carrying everything with a new "modular" mindset:

As I have written in several previous articles, Vitalik's proposal essentially indicates that the current blockchain industry has transformed from a "monopoly" of broad competition into a "collaborative" deep optimization strategy, meaning Ethereum has finally let go of the ivory tower image where technology represents everything and has begun to truly embrace the community and align with the "market."

Replacing the EVM with RISC-V will sound the horn for the "ZK technology narrative + modular" infrastructure innovation, allowing Ethereum to rejuvenate with a new paradigm of technological narrative.

The potential for a 100-fold performance improvement means that Ethereum will provide a stronger support base for the Layer2 ecosystem while maintaining security. In the past, Ethereum was limited by the large layer2 ecosystem, but a self-reliant L1 will take on a new role as a "security consensus layer," allowing it to directly compete with other layer1s while avoiding being drained by the upstart layer2s.

Learning from Bitcoin is not an admission of defeat in complexity but a tribute to the first principles of the "security-first path." At least Bitcoin has already validated the feasibility of this path. With the new modular concept, Ethereum allows L1 to focus on secure settlement while giving L2 ample space to unleash innovative applications.

This seemingly laissez-faire yet spiritually guiding ecological architecture will prove to be the most efficient over time.

From a macro perspective, while high-performance layer1 competitors like Solana are still pursuing single metrics for showmanship, Ethereum has already begun laying out its strategy for the next decade: not to compute everything, but to securely carry everything. Because, over the past few cycles, the true winners of public chains have not triumphed through performance, but through "stability" — and the premise of stability is simplicity.

Look, Ethereum's current biggest problem is "consensus split." Indeed, there is a large group of faith holders who are deeply committed to the technical narrative, but the army of black fans who have turned against and insulted it is also growing stronger.

But in fact, whether Ethereum is good or bad is just a matter of perspective. The truth is simply that because of "belief," we see; because of "disbelief," we perish.

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