Ethereum enters ‘rebuild era,’ Vitalik Buterin calls for cultural shift

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the largest altcoin, Ethereum, proposed a plan to revamp the ETH blockchain. After months of criticism and allegations faced by the Ethereum Foundation, the 31-year-old entrepreneur addressed major concerns regarding the “complexity” of adding new developers to the blockchain platform.

Ethereum (ETH) is home to $59.88 billion in total value of assets locked on its chain. Layer 2 and Layer 3 chains scaling Ethereum tackle the issue of user adop/REtion and scalability for the underlying blockchain, in exchange they derive security from ETH.

Buterin plans to simplify Ethereum blockchain

Vitalik Buterin acknowledged that the Ethereum blockchain has layers of technical complexity that makes it challenging for developers to get onboarded, maintain or develop projects on the chain.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is considered the heart of the ETH blockchain and Buterin believes it can be replaced with a simpler alternative. Buterin’s proposed plan is to simplify the Ethereum blockchain to Bitcoin’s extent, boosting the adoption of the chain and its native token.

In a blog post on May 3, Buterin said that the simplification could reduce the cost of creating new infrastructure on the Ethereum blockchain, lower maintenance costs and boost performance.

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How Ethereum could battle Bitcoin in five years

In his proposal, Buterin outlined a roadmap to simplify Ethereum and bring it as close as possible to the Bitcoin blockchain. Explaining how Bitcoin’s technical architecture can be understood by high school students and programmers can write client projects as a hobby on the side, Buterin says ETH can evolve.

In a nutshell, Buterin proposed that the Ethereum development team fix an explicit maximum line of code target for the long-term. The objective is to simplify Ethereum and bring it as close to Bitcoin as possible, in terms of consensus.

Buterin described several rules for code and developers that would make the process easier and likely invite more devs to join in and build on the chain.

While Buterin plans for Ethereum to take on Bitcoin in five years, as of 2025, the ETH/BTC ratio hit its lowest level in over five years. The last time ETH/BTC visited the 0.01766 low was January 2020.

This could be Ethereum’s bottom. Since hitting the low, the ratio has recovered. ETH/BTC trades at 0.02237 at the time of writing.

Decentralizing Ethereum further

Ethereum’s Merge was slammed as a move away from decentralization, as it shifted the consensus mechanism from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. However, Buterin differs from the community’s opinion on this and says simplification of the Ethereum blockchain is akin to decentralizing it further.

The processes of simplification and decentralization are both upstream of the chain of “resilience” and require cultural changes within the project. Buterin acknowledges in his blog that the benefits may be illegible.

Intent on rebuilding Ethereum from the inside out and boosting competition against Bitcoin, Buterin lists the cost of “extra effort” in his blog post.

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Ethereum Price Forecast

Ethereum ended its consolidation on May 7 and started its rally. ETH is 11% away from its resistance R1 at the lower boundary of an FVG at $2,550. Ethereum faces next key resistance at R2, $2,745.

Ethereum could find support at the lower boundary of an FVG at $1,850, in the event of a crash.

Key technical indicators, RSI and MACD support further gains in Ethereum. RSI slows upwards and reads 80, MACD flashes green histogram bars above the neutral line.

ETH/USDT daily price chart | Source: Crypto.news

Ethereum ETF flows and tokenization gold rush

U.S.-based Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $16.11 million in outflows on May 8, against Bitcoin’s net inflows. Institutional investors remain wary of pouring capital into altcoins, while Bitcoin benefits from rising stablecoin reserves on exchanges and positive daily net flows to Spot ETFs.

Ethereum ETF flows | Source: SoSo Value

Though Solana competes with Ethereum for dominance across several metrics across decentralized exchanges, ETH remains the first choice for real-world asset tokenization.

A mention of tokenization is incomplete without BlackRock’s BUIDL, a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund built on the Ethereum blockchain. The fund was launched in early 2024 and currently has over $2.5 billion in assets under management.

At the time of writing, Ethereum accounts for 74% of the market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries and represents $6.2 billion. These catalysts contribute to the recent gains in ETH and the likely rally, in the short to medium term, in the altcoin.