Vitalik Buterin Outlines Execution Layer Roadmap with Key Adjustments

Vitalik Buterin has shared insights on social media regarding the execution layer roadmap, highlighting adjustments to the state tree and virtual machine. According to Odaily, the state tree will be upgraded through EIP-7864 from the current hexadecimal Merkle Patricia tree to a binary tree structure using more efficient hash functions like Blake3 or Poseidon. This change aims to shorten Merkle branch lengths and reduce verification bandwidth costs. The binary tree approach will also group storage slots into pages to lower adjacent storage access costs and reserve metadata bits for future state expiration functionality. In terms of the virtual machine, Buterin suggests a long-term direction of replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with a potential RISC-V architecture. The new virtual machine should enhance execution and proof efficiency, support client-side generation of ZK proofs, and simplify code implementation. The deployment path includes initially replacing precompiled contracts, then supporting new virtual machine contract deployment, and ultimately achieving backward compatibility while gradually replacing the EVM.