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I first learned about cryptocurrency in early 2010 but it wasnt until this year that I truly understood the future implications of the whole industry and the difference between Bitcoin as a currency and its underlying technology (blockchain) and how even if people don't believe in Bitcoin, they will eventually find their lives connected to blockchain in some way shape or form. 

In a recent article entitled 'A Modest Proposal': Vitalik Unveils Multi-Year Vision for Ethereum' I learned about Vitalik's future plans for Ethereum and I'd like to share some of them with you here. 

Ethereum recently held it's flagship conference, Devcon. At this event held on Nov. 2nd, 2017, Vitalik Buterin gave investors insights into Ethereum's new long-term plan for the future. 

>"The amount of activity on the blockchain is orders of magnitude larger than it was just a couple of years ago," he said, pointing to daily transaction rates and the more than 20,000 nodes now part of the network.

>With this, he suggested ethereum is running up against its limits.

>Buterin told the crowd:"Scalability is probably problem number one [...] There’s a graveyard of systems that claim to solve the scalability problem but don't. It's a very significant and hard challenge. These are just known facts."

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As with many blockchain technologies scalability poses a problem and growth will be limited until this problem is completely addressed. 

If we are looking for a network to stand the test of time, it has to be prepared to deal with exponential growth. Vitalik believes the solution to this problem requires something called 'sharding.' Sharding can be defined as:

>A way of partitioning data into subsets that takes its inspiration from traditional databases, the idea is that each node will only have to store a small chunk of the total network. Yet, the vision is that the underlying math would hold the system accountable, and if they need it, nodes could rely on other nodes for data.

>Buterin is proposing a new type of sharding infrastructure that would solve both scalability and governance – ensuring the eventual system is well maintained and that it stays in check.

>The proposal revealed today is for ethereum to be split into different types of shards. There will be the main shard, which would comprise today's ethereum network; then there would be other shards, which Buterin calls other "universes."

For people just getting their head around Bitcoin and blockchain technology, this can be a lot to take in. Cryptographers have been working on complex math problems before blockchain was ever invented but it is now that a brand new field is emerging and trying to tackle problems that humanity as a whole has yet to solve. 

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>Buterin's roadmap includes other changes too, though they were less prominent in his talk.

>These included planned upgrades to the ethereum virtual machine (EVM), the technology that today compiles smart contract code and communicates it to the network. He also addressed another long-in-the-making tech project, eWASM, for running ethereum in a web browser, one that hints at the necessity of ensuring this system given that the EVM has been implemented in other blockchain projects as well.

The fact is Ethereum is still just a baby in terms of its development. There is no doubt in my mind that the future is bright for this thriving blockchain platform and it has one of the most brilliant developers ever to have lived behind the helm. Many new and exciting developments will be implemented by Ethereum in the coming months and years and I think its fascinating to watch this transformation take place. 

What do you guys think about this new proposal? Will Ethereum manage to solve scalability issues and become a model for a decentralized Web 3.0? 

Please leave your insights and feedback below. 

Thanks for reading! 

Source:

'A Modest Proposal': Vitalik Unveils Multi-Year Vision for Ethereum' - Coindesk