Key Insights:
- Ethereum adds a new level to its technical roadmap
- The introduction of the Scourge is to improve censorship resistance and decentralization
- Vitalik wants Ethereum to offer credible neural transactions and avoid protocol risks from MEV.
The Ethereum blockchain switched from the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism to the Proof of stake (PoS). The transition will feature different stages, including the surge, verge, purge, and splurge.
These stages are the roadmap that the transition will follow. Presently, the transition is at the second stage; the surge. This transition stage aims to attain 100,000 transactions per second through rollups.
Interestingly, Ethereum has disclosed an updated technical roadmap. The road map now adds “the Scourge” as the new third stage.
So the transition phase will now follow this order: the Surge, the Scourge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge.
Vitalik Discloses a New Level
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, announced that they have added a new stage to the Ethereum technical roadmap. He said the addition would help to improve censorship resistance and decentralization of the Ethereum network.
Vitalik tweeted the announcement and said the new roadmap has been expanded to six with the addition of “the Scourge.”
Updated roadmap diagram! pic.twitter.com/MT9BKgYcJH
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 4, 2022
In the updated roadmap, the goal of the Scourge is to ensure reliable and credibly neutral transaction inclusion.
It will also help to avoid centralization and other protocol risks from MEV.
You would recall that Vitalik Buterin has advocated a more “credibly neutral” consensus layer. He becomes more vocal about it as miners continue to exploit transactions on the Ethereum network to their favor.
Vitalik describes a credibly neutral mechanism that does not discriminate for or against specific people. There are expectations that the Scourge will make the Ethereum blockchain a more credibly neutral mechanism.
Similarly, the Ethereum network has the Miner Extractable Value (MEV). The MEV occurs when a miner beats other participating miners to decide which transaction should be placed in the block— in what order.
In this case, miners can duplicate all the winning deals from the meme pool. They can execute their transactions ahead of arbitrage seekers or other participants attempting to make a profit.
Therefore, the merge has increased Ethereum’s degree of centralization and censorship. The transition to Proof of stake has increased its block-compliant percentage. The US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) put the block-compliant percentage at 73% in November.
Conclusion
Since Vitalik announced the updated level, he has refused to disclose the full details of the Scourge.
Furthermore, some other stages in the roadmap will now see additional updates. For instance, SNARK will be integrated into the verge to serve as its privacy-preserving feature.
