Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a shift in the standards defining rollups within the Ethereum ecosystem. Buterin emphasized the importance of achieving a higher level of decentralization by the end of 2024 to avoid falling behind, stating this in a blog post on Mar. 28.

This suggestion stems from Buterin's earlier comments in November 2022. At that time, he declared that any network showing progress in scalability and decentralization, even if not fully decentralized, has reached stage 1 status. Attaining complete decentralization would elevate the network to Stage 2.

The need to enhance decentralization of rollups by the year's end is underscored by Buterin's observation that only a few Layer-2 projects have achieved stage 1 or stage 2 decentralization, with data from L2beat confirming this. Additionally, Buterin noted that only Arbitrum is fully EVM compatible.

Moving forward, Ethereum's developmental focus will shift to scaling efforts, concentrating on increasing blob capacity and rectifying inefficiencies within the application layer. Future plans include the implementation of data availability sampling, aiming to boost blob capacity to 16MB per slot. Developers are also exploring strategies such as optimistic execution, data compression, and other mechanisms to enhance Layer-2 solutions and overall network security.

Once these milestones are accomplished, developers can proceed cautiously towards stage 2, ensuring that rollups are securely backed by code and a security council can only intervene when the code is proven contradictory.