Vitalik Buterin Revises Blockchain Scaling Framework and Supports User Self-Validation

• Buterin ranks scaling difficulty with computation easiest, data availability harder, and state the most difficult to scale.
• Zero-knowledge proofs and data-splitting help scale execution and availability without weakening trust assumptions.
• Vitalik reversed his 2017 view, now backing user self-verification as cryptography and real-world lessons advanced.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined a revised framework for blockchain scaling and user verification in a post shared on X yesterday. The discussion detailed how blockchains scale computation, data, and state, and why their difficulty differs. Buterin also reversed a 2017 view on user self-validation, citing technical progress and practical lessons learned.

According to Vitalik Buterin, blockchain scaling follows a clear hierarchy, starting with computation as the easiest component to scale. He explained that developers can parallelize computation or replace large workloads with cryptographic proofs. Notably, techniques like zero-knowledge proofs reduce execution demands without altering trust assumptions.

However, Buterin placed data availability in the middle of the hierarchy. He stated that systems requiring availability guarantees must meet them directly. Still, developers can split data and apply erasure coding methods such as PeerDAS. As a result, nodes with lower capacity can produce proportionally smaller blocks.

In contrast, Buterin identified state as the hardest component to scale. He noted that validating even a single transaction requires access to the full state. Even when developers compress state into a tree structure, updating the root still depends on complete state data.

Although some approaches attempt state partitioning, Buterin said they require major architectural changes. Moreover, these designs lack general-purpose flexibility. Because of this, he argued developers should replace state with data when possible, provided decentralization remains intact.

Alongside the scaling discussion, Buterin publicly reversed a statement he made in 2017 regarding user validation. At the time, he described full user verification as unrealistic. However, in his recent X post, he said improved cryptography and experience changed that view.

He acknowledged that the ecosystem has changed massively. As a result, he now emphasizes self-sovereignty and verification as central design goals. According to Buterin, these shifts indicate Ethereum’s updated stance on long-term network resilience.