Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum Achieves Breakthrough in Solving the "Impossible Triangle" in Blockchain Industry

Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on X that the long-standing "Impossible Triangle" problem (i.e., the network's difficulty in simultaneously achieving decentralization, security, and scalability) has been overcome in the practical implementation on the Ethereum blockchain network.

Vitalik emphasized that this breakthrough is not just theoretical but has been realized through actual code deployed on the mainnet, marking a structural shift in Ethereum's development history.

Buterin pointed out that this achievement is thanks to breakthroughs in two core technologies. The first is PeerDAS, which has already gone live on the mainnet; it uses data availability sampling technology to enable the network to efficiently verify massive data in a decentralized manner.

The second is the Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (ZK-EVM), which has reached "production-quality performance," allowing complex smart contract computations to be compressed off-chain and verified quickly, greatly enhancing the network's scalability without sacrificing security.

Buterin predicts that by 2026, Ethereum's Gas limit will be significantly increased, ZK-EVM nodes will become more widespread earlier, and it is expected to become the primary method for block validation before 2030.

He also emphasizes that building distributed block structures to reduce centralization risks in transaction ordering remains a long-term goal. This indicates that solving the Impossible Triangle is not the end but a new starting point for advancing decentralization at a higher level.

However, despite Ethereum experiencing multiple major upgrades in 2025 and record-breaking development activity, ETH's price performance has been relatively lagging, and the network's reliance on Layer 2 solutions and large staking operators has deepened, raising questions about the purity of decentralization.

In summary, facing both external ecosystem competition and internal centralization doubts, Ethereum is shifting industry discussions from the theoretical debate of "whether the Impossible Triangle can be achieved" to the practical track of "how to realize scalable deployment" through real-time code like PeerDAS and ZK-EVM.

But whether this breakthrough can be successfully implemented depends not only on continuous code refinement but also on whether it can uphold the original intention of decentralization while pursuing performance. Because future industry competition will ultimately be a dual test of technological execution and core philosophical steadfastness.

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