Ethereum -Researcher Justin Drake revealed the “Lean Ethereum” proposal On July 31, this reformulates the base layer around the imperatives of survival opportunities against nation state and quantum threats and performance extensions of the consequences without sacrificing decentralization.
The new guidelines were called “Fort Mode” and “Beast Mode” respectively.
The vision was published on the Ethereum Foundation blog and argued that the network can simultaneously be hardened and radically scaled up by anchoring the mainnet in hash-based cryptography and all three of the protocolsubslayers, that consensus, data and execution.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Drake recently tackled the concept during an ETH-oriented event in Berlin.
Fort -mode and Beast mode
Drake’s security thesis emphasizes that Ethereum has had to walk among opponents for decades, even centuries.
According to the route map: “When the internet is over, Ethereum Up” is the goal. On performance, Lean Ethereum focuses on approximately 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on maimnet via aggressive vertical scale and approximately 1 million TPS on low-2 (L2) block chains via expansive horizontal scale.
He added that engaging “Moon-Math” is no longer ambitious, which suggests that real-time virtual zero-knowledge virtual machines (ZKVMs) for implementation and sampling of data availability (DAS) for data penalty.
A complementary usability goal is complete chain verification on consumer devices, such as browsers, telephones and portfolios.
Three “Lean” Sublayers
Lean Ethereum presents coordinated upgrades over three different layers. The first is ‘lean consensus’ or beacon chain 2.0, aimed at hardening the beacon chain for maximum security and decentralization, with near-instant finality measured in seconds.
Lean Data (Blobs 2.0) is the second layer. The aim is to enable ‘blobs’ after the quantum with a grainy size to maintain a calldata-like developer experience and to stimulate the transit.
Finally, Lean Execution (EVM 2.0) consists of a minimal, Snark-friendly instruction set that retains EVM compatibility and network effects, but speeds up proof and verification.
Together these changes are intended to deliver “performance finding” under non-negotiable continuity and simplicity restrictions.
Hash-based crypto as a standard material
Lean Ethereum treats the hash function as the fundamental primitive between layers. Aggregate signatures in consensus that replace Boneh-Lynn-Shamm (BLS), hash-based obligations that replace Kate, Zaverucha and Goldberg (KZG) in the data layer, and Hash-Centric ZKVMs that have streamed the implementation verification of the version.
The approach was designed to be future -proof against Kwantum opponents at the same time, while harmonizing with the rapid rise of snarzen over the pile.
Drake said that Lean Ethereum is just as well a technical aesthetics as a route map. The concept is based on minimum modules, encapsulated complexity, formal verification and demonstrable security and optimality.
The emphasis on “Lean Craft” tries to prune the old complexity and at the same time standardize on primitives that are easier to reason and verify.
