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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the network has effectively “solved” the blockchain trilemma: decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth, arguing that the missing ingredients are now live on mainnet or within reach as zero-knowledge Ethereum virtual machines (ZK-EVMs) move toward production use.

In a Jan. 3 post on X, Buterin framed the moment around two technical developments: PeerDAS, which he said is now live on Ethereum mainnet, and ZK-EVMs, which he described as being at an “alpha stage” with “production-quality performance” while “remaining work is safety.”

“These are not minor improvements; they are shifting Ethereum into being a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network,” Buterin wrote. “To see why, let’s look at the two major types of p2p network so far.”

Buterin drew a contrast between early peer-to-peer systems that could scale throughput but lacked agreement on shared state, and blockchains that achieved robust consensus but paid for it with constrained bandwidth. He pointed to BitTorrent as a model of decentralized distribution without consensus, and to Bitcoin as a model of decentralization and consensus that keeps bandwidth low because “it’s not ‘distributed’ in the sense of work being split up, it’s replicated.”

Ethereum Will Solve The Blockchain Trilemma

The claim, in Buterin’s telling, is that Ethereum is entering a third category. “Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth,” he said. “The trilemma has been solved — not on paper, but with live running code, of which one half (data availability sampling) is on mainnet today, and the other half (ZK-EVMs) is production-quality on performance today — safety is what remains.”

Buterin cast this as the culmination of a multi-year roadmap rather than a sudden breakthrough. He described it as a “10-year journey,” pointing back to early data availability sampling research and noting that ZK-EVM efforts began around 2020. The arc of his argument is that data availability sampling changes what a decentralized network can safely publish and verify at scale, while ZK-EVMs change how nodes can validate execution, shifting validation toward proof-based verification as the technology matures.

Looking ahead, Buterin laid out an approximate timeline for how he expects the vision to roll out over the next four years. In 2026, he expects “large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increases” tied to BALs and ePBS, alongside what he described as the first opportunities to run a ZK-EVM node.

From 2026 through 2028, he anticipates a sequence of changes, gas repricings, adjustments to state structure, moving execution payloads into blobs, and other steps, aimed at making higher gas limits safe. Between 2027 and 2030, he expects “large further gas limit increases,” with ZK-EVMs becoming “the primary way to validate blocks on the network.”

He also flagged what he called a “third piece” of the puzzle: distributed block building. The long-term goal, he wrote, is a world where “the full block is never constituted in one single place,” though he stressed it “will not be necessary for a long time.” The nearer-term focus is distributing “meaningful authority in block building,” either through in-protocol mechanisms—he floated expanding FOCIL as a primary transaction channel—or through out-of-protocol systems such as distributed builder marketplaces.

For Buterin, distributing block building is not just an engineering preference but a risk and fairness question: he argued it would reduce the chance of “centralized interference with real-time transaction inclusion,” while creating “a better environment for geographical fairness.”

At press time, ETH traded at $3,164.

Featured image from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com

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In the 8-year history of Ethereum, there have been multiple mysteries that have made their way to the mainstream. However, one of the most popular of these is an ETH wallet that participated in the Ethereum ICO back in 2014 which has not seen any kind of activity since then.

Dormant Ethereum ICO Wallet Stumps Investors

In February 2023, X (formerly Twitter) user @jconorgrogan took to the platform to reveal a curious Ethereum wallet. This wallet, according to Conor, was the only ETH wallet that had participated in the ICO in 2015 and had not carried out any transactions since then.

The mystery behind the wallet further grew when community members discovered that it was carrying a total of 250,000 ETH. Records show that the wallet had bought this massive stash of ETH in 2014 for $75,000 and the value of the investment has since appreciated to over $470 million. Yet it has not been claimed, nor has the owner sold any coins.

One of the most mysterious addresses in all of crypto:
-Bought $75k worth of ETH at the ICO in ’14
-Completely untouched wallet; has never made a single transaction
-Wallet now worth $400M+, a 5333x
-Received $6.5M in airdrops just by hodling (a 87x on initial investment alone) pic.twitter.com/wBpw9pQcAB

— Conor (@jconorgrogan) February 26, 2023

Not only had the wallet seen its initial investment grow exponentially, but it had also made millions of dollars in airdrops alone. Conor revealed that the wallet had received upwards of $6.5 million in airdrops, which, on its own, was already an 87x return on the original investment.

Following this first post, there were a number of theories for what might have made the investor not move any of the coins. These ranged from losing the private keys to the holder probably dying or in prison. However, Conor has finally uncovered the real story behind this wallet.

ETH remains firmly above $1,800 | Source: ETHUSD on Tradingview.com

Estonian Banking Magnate Loses Keys To ETH Wallet

Nine months after the initial tweet was made, Conor provided an update with an answer to who owns the $470 million ETH wallet and why they had not made any transactions. Like many speculated, it was actually a case of lost keys but the owner of the wallet was even more interesting.

Conor posted a screenshot of an interview with the founder of Estonian LHV Bank, Rain Lohmus, where he admitted that he had actually lost access to his Ethereum wallet holding 250,000 ETH. However, Lohmus doesn’t seem too phased by this given that he said he had not really tried to recover the wallet.

One mystery solved: This address (which now holds $450M of crypto) belongs to Rain Lohmus, founder of LHV Bank

Unfortunately he lost his keys and can’t access these 100s of millions. If you can help him recover them somehow, he’s willing to split them with you https://t.co/wYLAU9gKzb pic.twitter.com/0A1nIjFSyn

— Conor (@jconorgrogan) November 6, 2023

The LHV Bank founder also revealed that he is unable to solve the issue and get back his ETH. So he is open to sharing offers from anyone who believes that they will be able to access the wallet. On his own though, Lohmus’ plan is “to build Rain Lohmus as an AI and see if he can get his memories back.”

Nevertheless, the millionaire doesn’t seem too disturbed by this. “I don’t like things that result in zero or one. You can spend ten years on it, and it might end up with zero; it might end up with you solving a problem, but I prefer to do things where progress is visible on a daily basis.”

Key Takeaways

• Avalanche is the world’s fifteenth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap
• John Nahas, Vice President of Business Development at the firm behind Avalanche, Ava Labs joins the podcast
• He chats through launching so recently (2020), the bull and bear markets, attempting to solve the blockchain trilemma, Avalanche’s energy output, tribalism in crypto, regulation and more 

The industry of cryptocurrency has not been around a long time. Bitcoin is the grandparent of the space, and yet it only launched thirteen years ago.

But even within this young industry, Avalanche stands out for its youth. Launched in late 2020 as the crypto bull market was beginning to rage, it has swiftly established itself among the top projects. Today, it’s the fifteenth biggest coin by market cap. 

On the latest episode of the CoinJournal podcast, I interviewed John Nahas, Vice President of Business Development at Ava Labs, the creator of Avalanche.

We discussed the rollercoaster ride that has been crypto over the last couple of years, and how it was to launch into such an auspicious market environment. Of course, we also then chatted about the recent bear market and how this has been for the project, as well as crypto as a whole.

One thing I enjoyed: pouring cold water on the toxic tribalism that crypto has a soft spot for. I’ve written extensively about this partisan attitude, the “my coin is better than your coin” attitude that crypto has. This maximalism is something that irks John too, as he quickly dispelled the “ETH killer” narrative that has been floated about for Avalanche and other blockchains in the space.

We talked about the technical of Avalanche, and why John believes it has solved the blockchain trilemma. John also touched on the energy side of things, a sort of add-on to the trilemma which has only grown louder in recent years, with certain cryptos coming under pressure for their large energy bills. 

We also discussed the grey area that is regulation, and specifically for Avalanche, how staking could be affected. John stressed the recent penalties against Kraken were for failures to properly disclose, rather than against the act of staking itself.

These are just a few of the bigger topics which we covered. If you are interested in Avalanche, feel free to listen.

Listen to the podcast on various platforms here:

Listen on Spotify here:

Follow Avalanche: @AvalancheAvax

Find out more at www.avax.network/community

Follow Ava Labs: @AvaLabsOfficial

Follow John @SJohh_Nahas