Vitalik Buterin says ZK-EVMs and PeerDAS solve the Blockchain Trilemma.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has “solved” one of the biggest challenges in crypto, the blockchain trilemma.

In a Saturday X post, Buterin emphasized the potential of PeerDAS and Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs), noting that these two improvements are making Ethereum “a fundamentally new and more powerful decentralized network.”

“Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small network units to use in 2026), we get: decentralization, consensus and high bandwidth,” he said, adding:

“The trilemma has been solved – not on paper, but in live running code, half of it (data delivery sample) is on the main network today, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) * production quality in execution today * – security is the rest.

PeerDAS was introduced in December's Fusaka update, an upgrade that allows Ethereum to hold significantly more data.

Meanwhile, older zkEVMs are virtual machines that are compatible with both ZK authentication and the existing Ethereum virtual machine.

Ethereum co-founder zkEVMs are still in the “alpha stage”, because they are ready for implementation, but they need more security improvements. He gave a four-year time frame for zkEVMs to be fully used in Ethereum.

Buterin said that once these reforms are fully rolled out, Ethereum's long quest to balance decentralization, security and scalability will be completed.

“Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision unfold: * By 2026, we'll see a large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increase due to BALs and ePBS, and the first opportunities to run a ZKEVM node*,” he said.

“In 2026-28, gas iterations, changes in the government structure, exec payment going to blobs and other adjustments will ensure a higher gas limit. In 2027-30, a large additional gas limit will be added, while ZKEVM is the primary way to ensure blocks on the network,” he added.

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It took 10 years for Ethereum to solve the trilemma.

Referring to his first post on solving data-availability problems in April 2017, Buterin said it took 10 years of hard work to get Ethereum to the point where it could solve Trillman.

“This has been a 10-year journey. […] But in the end, it's here,” he said.

The blockchain trilemma refers to the complexity of building a blockchain network that simultaneously achieves sufficient decentralization, security, and scalability without one pillar impeding the other.

In general, most blockchains in their initial stages are forced to prioritize one or two of these pillars such as speed and security, gradually working to balance all three.

In the post, Buterin points to Bitcoin as an example, noting that the network is designed to be “highly decentralized” and secure.

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