Vitalik Buterin proposes replacing EVM with RISC-V for scaling

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine with RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture, as the new foundation for Ethereum smart contracts.

In a post shared on the Ethereum Magicians forum on Apr. 20, Buterin argued that the switch could drastically improve the performance and simplicity of Ethereum’s (ETH) execution layer. The EVM is responsible for executing smart contract code across the Ethereum network. 

According to Buterin, its limitations have become a long-term bottleneck for scaling. He believes replacing it with RISC-V, a hardware-standard architecture already used in zero-knowledge EVMs, could provide massive improvements in proving efficiency, particularly for zero-knowledge-based scaling.

ZK-EVMs currently translate Ethereum operations into RISC-V before producing proofs. Buterin recommends developers write contracts that compile directly to RISC-V, bypassing this intermediary step. Popular Ethereum programming languages like Solidity and Vyper, he said, would still be functional but would focus on RISC-V rather than the EVM.

Ethereum wouldn’t change its inter-contract communication, smart contract abstractions, or current account structure. The change would primarily affect the computation process at the back-end. Backward compatibility would be maintained, allowing legacy EVM contracts to continue operating and interacting with new RISC-V contracts.

According to Buterin, this modification might increase prover efficiency by over 50 times, or more in some cases, helping Ethereum maintain its competitive advantage over faster monolithic blockchains like Solana (SOL) and Sui (SUI).

This proposal coincides with multi-year lows in Ethereum’s network usage. According to Santiment data, the average transaction fee dropped to $0.16 in April, the lowest since 2020. The drop is tied to declining L1 activity as users move to layer-2 networks for lower-cost execution.  Previous improvements have largely focused on reducing L2 storage costs, but they have also significantly decreased L1 revenue.

Although Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade is set for May 7, Buterin’s call for a fundamental change suggests that minor changes might not be enough. To improve long-term scalability and stay up with high-performance chains, Ethereum may need to rethink the core features of its smart contract system.