Vitalik Buterin reveals 6 main focuses for Ethereum in 2024

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released an updated roadmap for the network’s plans in 2024.

Buterin shared the roadmap on Dec. 30 in a series of posts on X, where he confirmed it will only include minor changes from the previous year.

The six main focuses for Ethereum (ETH) in 2024, as outlined by Buterin, include the merge, the Surge, the Scourge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge.

The Merge, a major element of the roadmap, aims to maintain a straightforward and robust proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. This element was highlighted in 2022 when it led to the integration of the Ethereum mainnet and the Beacon Chain proof-of-stake blockchain.

Following this integration, Ethereum transitioned from a power-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to PoS, significantly reducing the network’s overall energy consumption.

The roadmap also highlighted Ethereum’s focus on single-slot finality (SSF), a concept designed to ensure that changes to blocks on a blockchain cannot be reversed without burning at least 33% of the total staked ETH.

Buterin also detailed how the Scourge priority would become more focused on combating economic centralization in Ethereum, particularly regarding MEV and liquid stake pooling.

Buterin to make ETH cypherpunk again

Recently, as reported by crypto.news, Buterin shared plans to reincorporate the original principles of the “cypherpunk” revolution into blockchain

The Ethereum CEO originally envisioned the network as a universally accessible, decentralized hard drive utilizing peer-to-peer communication and file storage. However, starting in 2017, Ethereum’s focus began to shift toward financial applications, according to Buterin.

In the future, he hopes to revive the quintessential “cypherpunk” ideals, such as decentralization, open participation, resistance to censorship, and trustworthiness.

Buterin also noted that recent advancements like rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, account abstraction, and second-generation privacy solutions align well with Ethereum’s original values.

Despite minor setbacks and challenges, his updated 2024 vision for Ethereum points towards an optimistic future, with analysts like Raoul Pal forecasting a potential price rise for ETH of up to $5,300.

ETH price to blow in 2024?

From Pal’s perspective, Ethereum’s price is poised for a significant uptrend. It isn’t a random prediction—Pal has grounded it in the liquidity indicator, a key tool that analysts leverage to forecast the potential price shifts of assets

While the Real Vision co-founder injected a note of caution, reminding crypto investors that his forecasts aren’t guaranteed, he exhibited an undeniable bullish outlook for Ethereum.

Pal further pointed out the potential impact of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Ethereum’s progress. He postulated that the introduction of a Bitcoin spot ETF could set the stage for an Ethereum ETF, revitalizing the Ethereum eco in the process.

Pal’s outlook was shared by analysts at CryptosRUs, who predicted a surge in ETH’s growth starting in Q1 2024.

According to the analysts, ETH’s upward trajectory will be fueled by factors such as positive market sentiment, the seasonality of ETH and Bitcoin (BTC), and the forthcoming Dencun upgrade.

In November, IntoTheBlock reported that over 75% of Ethereum addresses were profitable at a time when ETH was priced at $2,200. The market intelligence platform also stated that only about 22.5% of Ethereum addresses experienced unrealized losses, with close to 1.17% at the break-even point.

Ethereum’s network activity also saw significant rises, with the number of new addresses on the network spiking by about 17.5% and active addresses seeing a boost of roughly 23%.

Furthermore, Ethereum addresses without ETH balances also surged by around 74%, while the number of Ethereum addresses with ETH balances is on a steadily ascending trajectory.

Over the past 30 days, the average count of Ethereum addresses was approximately 102.72 million—more than double the number for Bitcoin.