The ongoing debate between Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), and Mihailo Bjelic, co-founder of Polygon (MATIC), regarding the inclusion of Verkle Trees on the Ethereum platform has raised concerns about Ethereum’s data storage capabilities and its potential impact on performance.
The discussion started when Bjelic questioned whether moving Ethereum to Verkle Trees was the best decision. He argued that the current Ethereum network would soon be zk-ficated, or integrated with zero-knowledge proofs.
In response, Buterin stated, “ZK-ifying keccak merkle patricia trees with worst case 300 MB witness sizes is a non-starter.” He explained that while Ethereum’s current Merkle tree lacks this functionality, Verkle Trees were specifically designed to be zk-friendly.
Merkle Patricia trees are the foundation of Ethereum’s data structure. However, due to their limitations, there is consideration for replacing them with Verkle Trees, which offer shorter proofs and higher bandwidth.
Bjelic further supported his argument by highlighting the capacity of Polygon zkEVM, claiming that the existing architecture can support the 300MB benchmark proposed by Buterin. He also claimed that this could be achieved within a total block time of just 12 seconds, although it would require approximately ten server-class CPUs.
Bjelic’s discussion about Polygon zkEVM follows the protocol’s recent transformation into a Type 2 ZK-EVM, a move that brings it closer to integration with the Ethereum mainnet.
In other news, Grayscale Bitcoin ETF GBTC has been experiencing consistent outflows of Bitcoin.