The Core Task of Ethereum in the Next Five Years: L1 Scaling

Ethereum is at a critical turning point in its transition from L2 differentiation back to L1 reconstruction. After achieving phased results in the L2 ecosystem, Ethereum will refocus on the scaling path of L1. Although Rollup is already quite efficient, there is still room for further optimization in L1 to achieve a lighter, more powerful, and more unified network architecture.

From L2 to L1: Reconstructing a Unified Ecosystem

Since Rollup became the core strategy for Ethereum scalability in 2020, L2 projects have emerged like mushrooms after rain, becoming "the new frontier of Ethereum." However, the prosperity of the L2 ecosystem has also brought new challenges:

1. A large number of transactions and value are increasingly fragmented across different L2s.
2. The pressure on L1 as a data availability and final settlement layer is increasing day by day.
3. High Gas transactions increase the computational and validation burden on L1 nodes.
4. The continuous expansion of the state space affects node synchronization efficiency and storage costs.
5. The fluctuation in block packaging time has intensified, posing hidden security and anti-censorship risks.

Currently, Ethereum is working to build a unified ecosystem rather than a fragmented platter of chains. This means that future asset transfers, state sharing, and application switching across L1/L2 should be as smooth and unobstructed as on a single chain. To achieve this, the Ethereum Foundation and the developer community are systematically promoting a series of structural optimizations at the L1 level, aimed at enhancing the mainnet's execution capability, usability, and resistance to attacks, while not sacrificing security and decentralization.

EIP-7987 and zkEVM: The Dual Engine for L1 Scaling

The two most关注的 core expansion reform plans are the EIP-7987 proposal and L1 zkEVM, which respectively represent resource scheduling optimization and execution layer reconstruction in two key dimensions.

EIP-7987: Limit on Gas Limit for Single Transactions

The EIP-7987 proposal suggests setting the Gas limit for a single transaction on Ethereum to 16.77 million. This proposal aims to prevent single high Gas operations like zkProof verification or large-scale contract deployments ( from monopolizing the entire block resources, causing congestion in node validation, especially affecting parallel execution environments and light node synchronization. By setting a limit, it forces some super-large transactions to be split, thus avoiding excessive resource consumption by a single transaction.

In addition to the single transaction Gas limit, adjustments to the Ethereum block limit are also underway. Currently, the block Gas limit has started to increase, now at 37.3 million. Theoretically, expanding the block Gas limit will directly and significantly enhance the performance of the Ethereum mainnet.

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) L1 zkEVM: Zero-Knowledge Proofs Reconstruct Execution Architecture

zkEVM is regarded as one of the "final solutions" for scaling Ethereum. Its core design idea is to enable the Ethereum mainnet to support ZK circuit verification, allowing the execution of each block to generate verifiable zero-knowledge proofs that can be quickly confirmed by other nodes. This technology is expected to bring the following advantages:

1. Nodes do not need to replay each transaction; they only need to verify the zkProof to confirm the validity of the block.
2. Effectively reduce the burden on full nodes and enhance friendliness towards light nodes and cross-chain validators.
3. Enhance security boundaries and anti-tampering capabilities

Currently, the concept of L1 zkEVM is accelerating towards implementation. It is expected that within a year, the Ethereum mainnet will gradually transition to an execution environment that supports zkEVM verification mechanisms. This means that the Ethereum mainnet will no longer just be a settlement layer, but will possess self-verification capabilities as an execution platform — a "verifiable world computer".

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Other Combinations of L1 Scaling

In addition to EIP-7987 and zkEVM, Ethereum's layer on the mainnet is making comprehensive efforts from multiple underlying modules to gradually build a high-performance, low-threshold, and fair on-chain execution environment:

1. ePBS Architecture Optimization: The roles of block proposer and block builder are completely separated, aiming to systematically address issues such as MEV extraction imbalance and construction power monopoly.

2. FOCIL Components: Allow light nodes to verify blocks and transaction execution results without needing to maintain a full state online.

3. Stateless Client Architecture: By introducing the witness) state proof( mechanism, nodes only need to download and verify data related to current transactions, significantly reducing synchronization and verification costs.

4. Beam Proposal: Introduce a more refined resource pricing mechanism for Ethereum, transforming Ethereum from a "one-dimensional billing system" to a "multi-dimensional resource market."

![From EIP-7987 to L1 zkEVM: The Evolution of Ethereum L1 Expansion])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-00a8ee128a6e8eaa929ebaeb05efcef5.webp(

Conclusion

The evolution of L1 has never stopped and cannot be replaced. L2 can accommodate more users and release execution space, while L1 provides unified settlement, security anchor points, and resource governance foundation. Only through the co-evolution of L1 and L2 can we build a truly sustainable, high-performance, globally applicable Web3 value network. In the future, Ethereum can only move towards a truly unified world computer if it achieves the co-evolution of L1 and L2.