Short-term pain for long-term gains is required to build a more decentralized ecosystem. Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum co-founder, made his long-term vision for the blockchain live at the annual Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, saying that right now is a turning point for the system. 

Presently, the most urgent priority for Ethereum is creating a light client that’s easy to use for the consensus layer, execution layer, and layer-2 solutions. After that comes better support for home stakers or those aiming to validate network transactions when Ethereum moves to ap proof-of-stake blockchain but doesn’t have the requisite 32 Ether (ETH). Lastly, Buterin thinks it’s key that at some point Ethereum can be run on a full node using less robust hardware.

In the long run, Buterin plans to further upgrade Ethereum by utilizing stronger cryptographic technologies that may even be resistant to quantum computing. He also wants to integrate with zero knowledge Ethereum virtual machines, but only if they are effective. He also pointed out that open minds are more than welcome right now.

However, he also shared his skepticism about a few other potential opportunities. These include adding support for multiple, complex virtual machines, or making the protocol so complex as to render it incomprehensible without the aid of specialists.

Ethereum is on the verge of its proof-of-stake upgrade, dubbed “Merge“, which will see the cryptocurrency’s proof-of-work algorithm phased out. Despite being over two years in the making, certain developers are still concerned about whether there will be a secure transition.