Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released an updated roadmap for the network’s plans for 2024.
Buterin shared the roadmap in a series of posts about X on December 30, confirming that it would include only minor changes from previous years.
As explained by Buterin, the six major focuses for Ethereum (ETH) in 2024 include Merge, Surge, Scourge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge.
Merge, a key element of the roadmap, aims to maintain simple and robust proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. This factor has been highlighted leading to the integration of the Ethereum mainnet with the Beacon Chain proof-of-stake blockchain in 2022.
Following this integration, Ethereum switched from the power-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to PoS, significantly reducing the overall energy consumption of the network.
The roadmap also emphasized that Ethereum is focused on single slot finality (SSF). SSF is a concept designed to ensure that block changes on a blockchain cannot be reversed without burning at least 33% of the total staked ETH.
Buterin also detailed how Scourge’s priorities will be more focused on fighting Ethereum’s economic centralization, especially with regard to MEV and floating stake pooling.
Buterin Will Recreate ETH Cypherpunk
Recently, according to crypto.news, Buterin shared his plans to reintegrate the original principles of the “cypherpunk” revolution into blockchain.
Ethereum CEO originally envisioned the network as a universally accessible decentralized hard drive utilizing peer-to-peer communication and file storage. But starting in 2017, Ethereum’s focus began to shift to financial applications, Buterin said.
In the future, he hopes to revive typical ‘cypherpunk’ ideals: decentralization, public participation, resistance to censorship, and trustworthiness.
Buterin also noted that recent developments such as rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, account abstraction, and second-generation privacy solutions are well aligned with Ethereum’s original values.
Despite minor setbacks and difficulties, Ethereum’s updated 2024 vision points to an optimistic future, with analysts like Raoul Pal predicting ETH’s potential price rise up to $5,300.
ETH price surge in 2024?
In Pal’s view, the price of Ethereum is poised for a significant upswing. This is not a random prediction. Pal based this on liquidity indicators, a key tool that analysts utilize to predict potential price movements of an asset.
The Real Vision co-founder displayed an undeniable bullish outlook for Ethereum while also issuing a cautionary note to cryptocurrency investors, reminding them that his predictions are not guaranteed.
Pal also pointed out the potential impact that exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could have on the development of Ethereum. He hypothesized that the introduction of a Bitcoin spot ETF could pave the way for an Ethereum ETF and revitalize the Ethereum ecosystem in the process.
Pal’s outlook was shared by analysts at CryptosRUs, who predicted a surge in ETH’s growth starting in the first quarter of 2024.
According to analysts, ETH’s upward trajectory will be fueled by factors such as positive market sentiment, seasonality between ETH and Bitcoin (BTC), and the upcoming Dencun upgrade.
Last November, IntoTheBlock reported that more than 75% of Ethereum addresses were profitable when ETH price was $2,200. The market intelligence platform also revealed that only about 22.5% of Ethereum addresses experienced unrealized losses and were close to 1.17% at breakeven.
Ethereum’s network activity also saw a significant increase. The number of new addresses on the network surged by about 17.5% and the number of active addresses increased by about 23%.
Additionally, the number of Ethereum addresses without ETH balances has surged by about 74%, and the number of Ethereum addresses with ETH balances is also steadily increasing.
The average number of Ethereum addresses over the past 30 days is approximately 102.72 million, more than twice the number of Bitcoin addresses.