
Crypto News Flash
2025/05/05 10:15
Vitalik Buterin Eyes Simpler Ethereum with Line Limits and Bitcoin Principles
Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, currently valued at $220 billion with a price of $1,824, is the benchmark many blockchains aspire to. But it’s far from perfect. In a recent post titled “Simplifying the L1,” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a vision for the platform’s future.
Over the next five years, Buterin believes Ethereum should make a conscious effort to simplify its core Layer 1 protocol. His goal: make Ethereum leaner, easier to understand, and more resilient, qualities that have helped Bitcoin stand the test of time.
Vitalik draws inspiration from Bitcoin’s (BTC) design, calling it “beautifully simple.” He breaks it down, “There is a chain, which is made up of a series of blocks. Each block is connected to the previous block by a hash. Each block’s validity is verified by proof of work. Each block contains transactions. Transactions spend coins that were either created through the mining process, or outputted by previous transactions. And that’s pretty much it.” Ethereum, by contrast, has historically taken a more feature-rich, experimental route, often adding complexity for marginal gains.
One radical idea Vitalik proposes is to set a maximum line-of-code limit for Ethereum’s protocol. This would help keep the system lean and easier to understand, audit, and maintain. Ethereum’s current consensus system, the Beacon Chain, is powerful, but complicated. Buterin suggests replacing it with a streamlined alternative that he says could be much simpler. He outlines a new approach built on years of research and experience.
The 3-Slot Finality Redesign is a method that eliminates the need for epochs, complex committee shuffling, and sync committees. This design is not only simpler, with about 200 lines of code for a basic implementation, but also has near-optimal security.
He also explains that with fewer active validators, Ethereum could adopt simpler fork choice rules, which determine which chain is “correct” in the event of a split. Another key innovation is the STARK-based aggregation. While the underlying cryptography is complex, Vitalik says: “It is at least highly encapsulated complexity, which has much lower systemic risk toward the protocol.”
Ethereum’s execution layer, specifically the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), has become bloated over time, and Vitalik admits some of it is his own doing, “The EVM is increasingly growing in complexity, and much of that complexity has proven unnecessary… a 256-bit virtual machine that over-optimized for highly specific forms of cryptography… precompiles that over-optimized for single use cases that are barely being used.”
Instead of focusing on small improvements, Vitalik Buterin suggests completely transitioning Ethereum to a simpler, more efficient virtual machine, possibly something like RISC-V or another VM already used in Ethereum’s zero-knowledge (ZK) prover systems.
This overhaul could bring significant benefits, including performance boosts, potentially more than 100 times faster. For developers, this change could enhance the experience by allowing languages like Solidity and Vyper to compile to the new VM.
Vitalik’s message is clear: Ethereum doesn’t need to grow more complicated to grow stronger. By simplifying its consensus and execution layers and by keeping its codebase intentionally lean, Ethereum could become more secure and more efficient for the long haul.

Cointribune EN
2025/05/03 10:00
S&P 500 Recovers Sharply After Unexpected GDP Contraction
What if markets followed a tempo that escapes economic logic? While the US GDP is declining, the S&P 500 is bouncing back after a sharp drop of nearly 20 %. This unexpected turnaround, fueled by contradictory signals, intrigues even in trading rooms. Indeed, at BNP Paribas, strategists wonder: does this rapid correction fit into a global tradition ? To understand it, they dive back into a century of stock market crash history.
Between February 19 and April 8, 2024, the S&P 500 index lost nearly 20 %, falling from 6,144.15 to 4,982.77 points. This downward sequence, which BNP Paribas analysts called the “Tariff Crash”, attracted their attention because of its size, but also its context.
Greg Boutle, Bénédicte Lowe, and Aurélie Dubost write in a note published this Friday :
Recent stock behavior is consistent with previous crashes not related to a recession.
They add: “Crashes that occur without a marked economic slowdown can be significant and volatile, but tend to be relatively short-lived.” By tracing market movements back to the 1920s using Dow Jones data, the authors show that significant drops can occur even without a major macroeconomic shock.
Several conjunctural elements have confirmed this interpretation and supported the rebound observed at the end of the studied period :
While BNP Paribas’s historical analysis tends to mitigate the severity of the “Tariff Crash”, strategists do not overlook the structural vulnerabilities that could plunge markets back into turmoil.
In the same note, they warn of an alternative scenario: “stocks could retest their annual lows if a combination of downward earnings revisions and multiple compression materializes.”
Multiple compression, which means a decline in stock valuations tied to earnings outlooks, could indeed challenge the current rebound, especially if growth deteriorates further. A resurgence of the market thus rests on an unstable balance between hopes for a de-escalation in trade tensions, conjunctural resilience, and corporate earnings momentum.
Moreover, the authors remind us that economic forecasts, even those supported by long-term analyses, can prove to be out of sync with reality. “In 2022, our model projected an S&P 500 around 3,000 and VIX reaching 40 by mid-2023,” they note, before emphasizing that these levels were ultimately never reached.
This observation calls for caution regarding current predictions. Especially since other signals, such as the sharp rise in bond yields observed late last week, indicate the market continues to oscillate between fear of a sudden slowdown and hope for a soft landing. Thus, any macroeconomic surprise or a resurgence of trade tensions could abruptly reverse the current trend.
Ultimately, while the S&P 500’s rebound seems to validate the hypothesis of a crash without recession, the balance remains precarious. The precedent of 2022 reminds us that even the best-constructed scenarios can be contradicted by facts. For investors, the lesson is clear: market resilience should not be interpreted as a free pass. Between encouraging signs and lingering uncertainties , the coming weeks will be decisive in deciding between a simple technical correction and a deeper economic turnaround.