Vitalik's Long-Term L1 Execution Layer Proposal Full Text: Replacing EVM with RISC-V

By: blockbeats|2025/04/21 13:15:04
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Original Title: Long-term L1 execution layer proposal: replace the EVM with RISC-V
Original Source: Vitalik Buterin
Original Translation: KarenZ, Foresight News

On April 20, Vitalik Buterin proposed a significant proposal regarding Ethereum's long-term L1 execution layer on the Ethereum Magicians platform. He suggested adopting the RISC-V architecture to replace the existing EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) as the virtual machine language for writing smart contracts. The goal is to fundamentally improve the efficiency of the Ethereum execution layer, overcome one of the current major scalability bottlenecks, and greatly simplify the elegance of the execution layer.

Foresight News has provided a full translation of the proposal to help readers understand this technological vision. The following is the translated content of the original proposal:

This article presents a radical idea about the future of the Ethereum execution layer, with ambitions no less than the Beam Chain plan for the consensus layer. The proposal aims to significantly enhance the efficiency of the Ethereum execution layer, address a major scalability bottleneck, and substantially simplify the execution layer—indeed, this may be the only way to achieve this goal.

Core Concept: Replace the EVM with RISC-V as the virtual machine language for smart contract writing.

Important Notes:

· Concepts such as account system, cross-contract calls, storage, etc., will be fully retained. These abstract designs work well, and developers are already accustomed to using them. Opcodes like SLOAD, SSTORE, BALANCE, CALL will be transformed into RISC-V system calls.

· In this mode, smart contracts can be written in Rust, but I expect most developers will continue to use Solidity (or Vyper) to write contracts, and these languages will be adapted to RISC-V as the new backend. Because smart contracts written in Rust are actually less readable, while Solidity and Vyper are clearer and more readable. The development experience may be hardly affected, and developers may not even notice the change.

· Old version EVM contracts will continue to operate and will be fully interoperable with new RISC-V contracts. There are several ways to achieve this, which will be discussed in detail later in this article.

The Nervos CKB VM has set a precedent as it is essentially an implementation of RISC-V.

Why is this done?

In the short term, upcoming EIPs (such as Block Access Lists, Delayed Execution, Distributed History Store, and EIP-4444) will address Ethereum's L1 main scalability bottlenecks. In the medium term, more issues will be addressed through statelessness and ZK-EVM. In the long term, the main limiting factors for Ethereum L1 scalability will be:

1. The stability of data availability sampling and historical storage protocols

2. The need to maintain block production market competitiveness

3. The proof capability of ZK-EVM

I will argue that replacing ZK-EVM with RISC-V can address key bottlenecks in (2) and (3).

The table below shows the number of cycles required at each step of Succinct ZK-EVM proof of EVM execution layer:

Vitalik's Long-Term L1 Execution Layer Proposal Full Text: Replacing EVM with RISC-V

Chart Description: The four main time-consuming steps are deserialize_inputs, initialize_witness_db, state_root_computation, and block_execution

Where initialize_witness_db and state_root_computation are related to the state tree, deserialize_inputs involves the process of converting block and witness data into an internal representation—actually more than 50% proportional to the witness size.

By replacing the current keccak 16-ary Merkle Patricia Tree with a binary tree that uses hash functions easy to prove, these parts can be significantly optimized. If Poseidon is used, we can prove 2 million hash values per second on a laptop (compared to approximately 15,000 hash/sec for keccak). Besides Poseidon, there are many other options. Overall, these components have a lot of optimization potential. Additionally, we can eliminate accrue_logs_bloom by removing bloom.

The remaining block_execution accounts for about half of the current proof cycle. To achieve a 100x overall proof efficiency improvement, the EVM proof efficiency needs to be improved at least 50 times. One solution is to create a more efficient proof implementation for EVM, and another is to note that the current ZK-EVM prover actually proves the EVM by compiling it into RISC-V, allowing smart contract developers direct access to this RISC-V virtual machine.

Some data indicates that in specific scenarios, efficiency gains of over 100x are possible:

In practical applications, the remaining prover time may be predominantly taken up by the current precompiles operation. If RISC-V is used as the main virtual machine, the Gas schedule will reflect actual proving time, and economic pressures will prompt developers to reduce the use of high-cost precompiles. Even so, the gains will not be as significant, but we have good reason to believe that these gains will be substantial.

(It is worth noting that in a typical EVM execution, the time spent on "EVM operations" versus "other operations" is also close to 50/50, so we intuitively believe that removing the EVM as an "intermediate layer" will bring equally significant gains.)

Implementation Details

There are various ways to implement this proposal. The least disruptive approach is to support both virtual machines simultaneously, allowing contracts to choose one to write. Both types of contracts will have access to the same functionality: persistent storage (SLOAD/SSTORE), the ability to hold an ETH balance, initiate/receive calls, etc. EVM and RISC-V contracts can call each other— from the RISC-V perspective, calling an EVM contract is akin to performing a system call with special parameters; and an EVM contract receiving a message will interpret it as a CALL.

From a protocol perspective, a more aggressive approach is to convert existing EVM contracts into calls to an EVM interpreter contract written in RISC-V, running its existing EVM code. That is, if an EVM contract has code C, and the EVM interpreter is at address X, the contract will be replaced with top-level logic that, when called with external parameters D, calls X and passes (C, D), then waits for a return value and forwards it. If the EVM interpreter itself calls the contract, requesting to perform CALL or SLOAD/SSTORE, the contract carries out these operations.

A compromise approach is to adopt the second approach but explicitly support the concept of a "virtual machine interpreter" in the protocol, requiring its logic to be written in RISC-V. EVM will be the initial instance, with potential future support for other languages (Move may be a candidate).

The core advantage of the second and third approaches are that they can greatly simplify the execution layer specification. Considering that even the incremental simplification of removing SELFDESTRUCT is fraught with difficulties, this approach may be the only feasible path to simplification. Tinygrad adheres to the strict rule of "code not exceeding 10,000 lines," and the optimal blockchain base layer should easily meet this limit, further streamlining the process. The Beam Chain project is expected to significantly simplify the Ethereum consensus layer, and for the execution layer to achieve similar improvements, this radical change may be the only viable path forward.

Original Article Link

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China's Central Bank and Eight Other Departments' Latest Regulatory Focus: Key Attention to RWA Tokenized Asset Risk


Foreword: Today, the People's Bank of China's website published the "Notice of the People's Bank of China, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, State Administration for Market Regulation, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Further Preventing and Dealing with Risks Related to Virtual Currency and Others (Yinfa [2026] No. 42)", the latest regulatory requirements from the eight departments including the central bank, which are basically consistent with the regulatory requirements of recent years. The main focus of the regulation is on speculative activities such as virtual currency trading, exchanges, ICOs, overseas platform services, and this time, regulatory oversight of RWA has been added, explicitly prohibiting RWA tokenization, stablecoins (especially those pegged to the RMB). The following is the full text:


To the people's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps:


  Recently, there have been speculative activities related to virtual currency and Real-World Assets (RWA) tokenization, disrupting the economic and financial order and jeopardizing the property security of the people. In order to further prevent and address the risks related to virtual currency and Real-World Assets tokenization, effectively safeguard national security and social stability, in accordance with the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the People's Bank of China," "Law of the People's Republic of China on Commercial Banks," "Securities Law of the People's Republic of China," "Law of the People's Republic of China on Securities Investment Funds," "Law of the People's Republic of China on Futures and Derivatives," "Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China," "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Renminbi," "Regulations on Prevention and Disposal of Illegal Fundraising," "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Foreign Exchange Administration," "Telecommunications Regulations of the People's Republic of China," and other provisions, after reaching consensus with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and with the approval of the State Council, the relevant matters are notified as follows:


  I. Clarify the essential attributes of virtual currency, Real-World Assets tokenization, and related business activities


  (I) Virtual currency does not possess the legal status equivalent to fiat currency. Virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, Tether, etc., have the main characteristics of being issued by non-monetary authorities, using encryption technology and distributed ledger or similar technology, existing in digital form, etc. They do not have legal tender status, should not and cannot be circulated and used as currency in the market.


  The business activities related to virtual currency are classified as illegal financial activities. The exchange of fiat currency and virtual currency within the territory, exchange of virtual currencies, acting as a central counterparty in buying and selling virtual currencies, providing information intermediary and pricing services for virtual currency transactions, token issuance financing, and trading of virtual currency-related financial products, etc., fall under illegal financial activities, such as suspected illegal issuance of token vouchers, unauthorized public issuance of securities, illegal operation of securities and futures business, illegal fundraising, etc., are strictly prohibited across the board and resolutely banned in accordance with the law. Overseas entities and individuals are not allowed to provide virtual currency-related services to domestic entities in any form.


  A stablecoin pegged to a fiat currency indirectly fulfills some functions of the fiat currency in circulation. Without the consent of relevant authorities in accordance with the law and regulations, any domestic or foreign entity or individual is not allowed to issue a RMB-pegged stablecoin overseas.


(II)Tokenization of Real-World Assets refers to the use of encryption technology and distributed ledger or similar technologies to transform ownership rights, income rights, etc., of assets into tokens (tokens) or other interests or bond certificates with token (token) characteristics, and carry out issuance and trading activities.


  Engaging in the tokenization of real-world assets domestically, as well as providing related intermediary, information technology services, etc., which are suspected of illegal issuance of token vouchers, unauthorized public offering of securities, illegal operation of securities and futures business, illegal fundraising, and other illegal financial activities, shall be prohibited; except for relevant business activities carried out with the approval of the competent authorities in accordance with the law and regulations and relying on specific financial infrastructures. Overseas entities and individuals are not allowed to illegally provide services related to the tokenization of real-world assets to domestic entities in any form.


  II. Sound Work Mechanism


  (III) Inter-agency Coordination. The People's Bank of China, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and other departments, will improve the work mechanism, strengthen coordination with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, coordinate efforts, and overall guide regions to carry out risk prevention and disposal of virtual currency-related illegal financial activities.


  The China Securities Regulatory Commission, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Bank of China, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and other departments, will improve the work mechanism, strengthen coordination with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, coordinate efforts, and overall guide regions to carry out risk prevention and disposal of illegal financial activities related to the tokenization of real-world assets.


  (IV) Strengthening Local Implementation. The people's governments at the provincial level are overall responsible for the prevention and disposal of risks related to virtual currencies and the tokenization of real-world assets in their respective administrative regions. The specific leading department is the local financial regulatory department, with participation from branches and dispatched institutions of the State Council's financial regulatory department, telecommunications regulators, public security, market supervision, and other departments, in coordination with cyberspace departments, courts, and procuratorates, to improve the normalization of the work mechanism, effectively connect with the relevant work mechanisms of central departments, form a cooperative and coordinated working pattern between central and local governments, effectively prevent and properly handle risks related to virtual currencies and the tokenization of real-world assets, and maintain economic and financial order and social stability.


  III. Strengthened Risk Monitoring, Prevention, and Disposal


  (5) Enhanced Risk Monitoring. The People's Bank of China, China Securities Regulatory Commission, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Cyberspace Administration of China, and other departments continue to improve monitoring techniques and system support, enhance cross-departmental data analysis and sharing, establish sound information sharing and cross-validation mechanisms, promptly grasp the risk situation of activities related to virtual currency and real-world asset tokenization. Local governments at all levels give full play to the role of local monitoring and early warning mechanisms. Local financial regulatory authorities, together with branches and agencies of the State Council's financial regulatory authorities, as well as departments of cyberspace and public security, ensure effective connection between online monitoring, offline investigation, and fund tracking, efficiently and accurately identify activities related to virtual currency and real-world asset tokenization, promptly share risk information, improve early warning information dissemination, verification, and rapid response mechanisms.


  (6) Strengthened Oversight of Financial Institutions, Intermediaries, and Technology Service Providers. Financial institutions (including non-bank payment institutions) are prohibited from providing account opening, fund transfer, and clearing services for virtual currency-related business activities, issuing and selling financial products related to virtual currency, including virtual currency and related financial products in the scope of collateral, conducting insurance business related to virtual currency, or including virtual currency in the scope of insurance liability. Financial institutions (including non-bank payment institutions) are prohibited from providing custody, clearing, and settlement services for unauthorized real-world asset tokenization-related business and related financial products. Relevant intermediary institutions and information technology service providers are prohibited from providing intermediary, technical, or other services for unauthorized real-world asset tokenization-related businesses and related financial products.


  (7) Enhanced Management of Internet Information Content and Access. Internet enterprises are prohibited from providing online business venues, commercial displays, marketing, advertising, or paid traffic diversion services for virtual currency and real-world asset tokenization-related business activities. Upon discovering clues of illegal activities, they should promptly report to relevant departments and provide technical support and assistance for related investigations and inquiries. Based on the clues transferred by the financial regulatory authorities, the cyberspace administration, telecommunications authorities, and public security departments should promptly close and deal with websites, mobile applications (including mini-programs), and public accounts engaged in virtual currency and real-world asset tokenization-related business activities in accordance with the law.


  (8) Strengthened Entity Registration and Advertisement Management. Market supervision departments strengthen entity registration and management, and enterprise and individual business registrations must not contain terms such as "virtual currency," "virtual asset," "cryptocurrency," "crypto asset," "stablecoin," "real-world asset tokenization," or "RWA" in their names or business scopes. Market supervision departments, together with financial regulatory authorities, legally enhance the supervision of advertisements related to virtual currency and real-world asset tokenization, promptly investigating and handling relevant illegal advertisements.


  (IX) Continued Rectification of Virtual Currency Mining Activities. The National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, strictly controls virtual currency mining activities, continuously promotes the rectification of virtual currency mining activities. The people's governments of various provinces take overall responsibility for the rectification of "mining" within their respective administrative regions. In accordance with the requirements of the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments in the "Notice on the Rectification of Virtual Currency Mining Activities" (NDRC Energy-saving Building [2021] No. 1283) and the provisions of the "Guidance Catalog for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 Edition)," a comprehensive review, investigation, and closure of existing virtual currency mining projects are conducted, new mining projects are strictly prohibited, and mining machine production enterprises are strictly prohibited from providing mining machine sales and other services within the country.


  (X) Severe Crackdown on Related Illegal Financial Activities. Upon discovering clues to illegal financial activities related to virtual currency and the tokenization of real-world assets, local financial regulatory authorities, branches of the State Council's financial regulatory authorities, and other relevant departments promptly investigate, determine, and properly handle the issues in accordance with the law, and seriously hold the relevant entities and individuals legally responsible. Those suspected of crimes are transferred to the judicial authorities for processing according to the law.


 (XI) Severe Crackdown on Related Illegal and Criminal Activities. The Ministry of Public Security, the People's Bank of China, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, as well as judicial and procuratorial organs, in accordance with their respective responsibilities, rigorously crack down on illegal and criminal activities related to virtual currency, the tokenization of real-world assets, such as fraud, money laundering, illegal business operations, pyramid schemes, illegal fundraising, and other illegal and criminal activities carried out under the guise of virtual currency, the tokenization of real-world assets, etc.


  (XII) Strengthen Industry Self-discipline. Relevant industry associations should enhance membership management and policy advocacy, based on their own responsibilities, advocate and urge member units to resist illegal financial activities related to virtual currency and the tokenization of real-world assets. Member units that violate regulatory policies and industry self-discipline rules are to be disciplined in accordance with relevant self-regulatory management regulations. By leveraging various industry infrastructure, conduct risk monitoring related to virtual currency, the tokenization of real-world assets, and promptly transfer issue clues to relevant departments.


  IV. Strict Supervision of Domestic Entities Engaging in Overseas Business Activities


(XIII) Without the approval of relevant departments in accordance with the law and regulations, domestic entities and foreign entities controlled by them may not issue virtual currency overseas.


  (XIV) Domestic entities engaging directly or indirectly in overseas external debt-based tokenization of real-world assets, or conducting asset securitization activities abroad based on domestic ownership rights, income rights, etc. (hereinafter referred to as domestic equity), should be strictly regulated in accordance with the principles of "same business, same risk, same rules." The National Development and Reform Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and other relevant departments regulate it according to their respective responsibilities. For other forms of overseas real-world asset tokenization activities based on domestic equity by domestic entities, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, together with relevant departments, supervise according to their division of responsibilities. Without the consent and filing of relevant departments, no unit or individual may engage in the above-mentioned business.


  (15) Overseas subsidiaries and branches of domestic financial institutions providing Real World Asset Tokenization-related services overseas shall do so legally and prudently. They shall have professional personnel and systems in place to effectively mitigate business risks, strictly implement customer onboarding, suitability management, anti-money laundering requirements, and incorporate them into the domestic financial institutions' compliance and risk management system. Intermediaries and information technology service providers offering Real World Asset Tokenization services abroad based on domestic equity or conducting Real World Asset Tokenization business in the form of overseas debt for domestic entities directly or indirectly venturing abroad must strictly comply with relevant laws and regulations. They should establish and improve relevant compliance and internal control systems in accordance with relevant normative requirements, strengthen business and risk control, and report the business developments to the relevant regulatory authorities for approval or filing.


  V. Strengthen Organizational Implementation


  (16) Strengthen organizational leadership and overall coordination. All departments and regions should attach great importance to the prevention of risks related to virtual currencies and Real World Asset Tokenization, strengthen organizational leadership, clarify work responsibilities, form a long-term effective working mechanism with centralized coordination, local implementation, and shared responsibilities, maintain high pressure, dynamically monitor risks, effectively prevent and mitigate risks in an orderly and efficient manner, legally protect the property security of the people, and make every effort to maintain economic and financial order and social stability.


  (17) Widely carry out publicity and education. All departments, regions, and industry associations should make full use of various media and other communication channels to disseminate information through legal and policy interpretation, analysis of typical cases, and education on investment risks, etc. They should promote the illegality and harm of virtual currencies and Real World Asset Tokenization-related businesses and their manifestations, fully alert to potential risks and hidden dangers, and enhance public awareness and identification capabilities for risk prevention.


  VI. Legal Responsibility


  (18) Engaging in illegal financial activities related to virtual currencies and Real World Asset Tokenization in violation of this notice, as well as providing services for virtual currencies and Real World Asset Tokenization-related businesses, shall be punished in accordance with relevant regulations. If it constitutes a crime, criminal liability shall be pursued according to the law. For domestic entities and individuals who knowingly or should have known that overseas entities illegally provided virtual currency or Real World Asset Tokenization-related services to domestic entities and still assisted them, relevant responsibilities shall be pursued according to the law. If it constitutes a crime, criminal liability shall be pursued according to the law.


  (19) If any unit or individual invests in virtual currencies, Real World Asset Tokens, and related financial products against public order and good customs, the relevant civil legal actions shall be invalid, and any resulting losses shall be borne by them. If there are suspicions of disrupting financial order and jeopardizing financial security, the relevant departments shall deal with them according to the law.


  This notice shall enter into force upon the date of its issuance. The People's Bank of China and ten other departments' "Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation" (Yinfa [2021] No. 237) is hereby repealed.


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