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Ethereum’s Buterin has unveiled plans to enhance the network’s consensus model, focusing on single-slot finality, staking accessibility, and increased validator participation.
Despite the successful completion of the Merge — an essential upgrade that transitioned <a href="https://crypto.news/tag/ethereum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum</a>‘s consensus algorithm from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake — the network’s co-founder <a href="https://crypto.news/tag/vitalik-buterin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Vitalik Buterin</a> notes that there are still remain “some important areas in which proof-of-stake needs to improve.”
In a Monday <a href="https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/10/14/futures1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">blog post</a>, Oct. 14, Buterin emphasized that critical improvements are still necessary to mitigate centralization risks and enhance overall functionality. The roadmap distinguishes between technical improvements — such as stability and accessibility for validators — and economic changes aimed at addressing centralization.
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One major area highlighted is the desire for single-slot finality, which would reduce the current block finalization time from 15 minutes to just 12 seconds (or even four seconds), a change that would “significantly improve the user experience both of the layer-1 and of based rollups, while making decentralized finance protocols more efficient.”
Another pressing concern is <a href="https://crypto.news/tag/staking/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">staking</a> democratization. Currently, a minimum of 32 ETH (around $81,500 at current prices) is required to participate in staking, a serious limitation, to which Buterin suggested lowering the threshold down to 1 ETH in an effort to increase solo staking participation.
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
 “Poll after poll repeatedly show that the main factor preventing more people from solo staking is the 32 ETH minimum. Reducing the minimum to 1 ETH would solve this issue, to the point where other concerns become the dominant factor limiting solo staking.”
 Vitalik Buterin
</blockquote>
To achieve these enhancements, Buterin outlined several strategies. One proposed solution, referred to as “brute force,” involves improving signature aggregation through the potential use ZK-SNARKs, enabling the processing of signatures from millions of validators within each slot.
Additionally, he introduced the concept of “orbit committees,” which would involve randomly selected medium-sized committees tasked with finalizing the chain while maintaining robust security features.
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For the staking challenges, Buterin suggested a “two-tiered staking” model, which would allow for two classes of stakers — one with higher deposit requirements and another with lower, an approach that would create a more inclusive environment for participants while ensuring economic finality.
While the timeline for implementing these proposals remains uncertain, Buterin emphasized the necessity of continued development to strike a balance between simplicity and functionality, reiterating the importance of identifying a protocol that is “sufficiently simple that we are comfortable implementing it on mainnet.”

Buterin outlines next steps for Ethereum’s proof-of-stake evolution

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