ETH 3.0 Rumors Heat Up as Ethereum Researcher Teases Scalability Solution Involving Sharding

A recent social media post by Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has sparked intense speculation about the future of Ethereum's scalability, with many wondering if Ethereum 3.0 could involve the revival of sharding as a core solution. The announcement has fueled excitement in the community, with some anticipating significant advancements to Ethereum's scalability, possibly leading to millions of transactions per second (TPS).

Justin Drake's Tease on Ethereum's Future

On November 11, Drake teased an "ambitious" new initiative for Ethereum, which he described as a "from-scratch" redesign of the Ethereum consensus layer. This announcement quickly caught the attention of the Ethereum community, with many interpreting it as a potential breakthrough in addressing Ethereum’s longstanding scalability challenges.

Drake indicated that his proposal would focus on offering a roadmap to enhance the Ethereum Beacon Chain and is expected to reveal the full details of his vision during his presentation at Devcon in Bangkok on November 12. His comments have stirred hopes that Ethereum may soon take a giant leap forward in terms of network capacity and performance.

Joe Lubin Suggests Sharding Could Return

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Joe Lubin, CEO of ConsenSys, further fueled speculation by hinting that Drake’s proposal could involve revisiting the concept of sharding—a solution that was initially put on hold but might now be feasible given recent technological advancements.

Sharding, in its simplest form, involves breaking the Ethereum blockchain into smaller pieces, or "shards," each capable of processing transactions independently. This would theoretically allow Ethereum to handle a much larger volume of transactions.

Lubin explained that when the idea of execution sharding was shelved a few years ago, it wasn’t considered technically feasible. However, with the development of zero-knowledge (zk) technologies—especially the zkEVM—the conditions may now be right to bring sharding back into the conversation.

"The interesting thing is that a few years ago, execution sharding wasn't really possible," Lubin said. "Now, with advancements in zero-knowledge methods and optimistic rollups, there’s a lot that can be brought down to Ethereum’s layer-1 to improve scalability."

Lubin also pointed out that implementing zkEVM at layer 1 could enable multiple execution shards that process transactions simultaneously, further enhancing Ethereum’s scalability. He believes that if this can be successfully executed, Ethereum could achieve the much-anticipated goal of millions of transactions per second (TPS).

However, Lubin also tempered expectations, acknowledging that achieving this level of scalability could take years, as building the infrastructure for such high throughput will require significant time and resources.

Community Reacts: ETH 3.0 and zkEVM Speculation

Following Drake’s teaser and Lubin’s comments, rumors of an upcoming ETH 3.0 upgrade began circulating in the Ethereum community. Some speculated that the upgrade could involve a second merge, with Ethereum shifting to a new consensus mechanism aimed at achieving 1-second block times, potentially paired with a native zkEVM.

Doug Colkitt, founder of Ambient Finance, weighed in on the speculation, suggesting that a native zkEVM could revolutionize Ethereum’s scalability. He argued that such an upgrade would eliminate the gas limit entirely, allowing builders to create arbitrarily large blocks. With zkSNARKs (succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge) used to verify transactions, only bandwidth would be a limiting factor, Colkitt suggested.

"This could be huge," Colkitt wrote, highlighting the potential for arbitrary scalability and suggesting that a native zkEVM might render Layer 2 rollups unnecessary, as the network could handle high throughput directly on Ethereum’s base layer.

Mixed Reactions in the Community

Despite the excitement, not everyone in the community is convinced by the ETH 3.0 rumors. Some skeptics dismissed the speculation as "100% BS," pointing out that such monumental updates would typically be announced far in advance. One community member noted that Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs)—the formal process for suggesting changes to Ethereum—would likely have been filed if such an update were imminent, casting doubt on the credibility of the rumors.

What’s Next for Ethereum?

As the Ethereum network continues to evolve with the introduction of Ethereum 2.0 and shard chains already on the horizon, the possibility of a major leap forward with ETH 3.0 remains an exciting prospect. While some of the speculation surrounding Ethereum's future is still uncertain, it's clear that Ethereum researchers and developers are actively working on innovative solutions to address the network’s scalability issues.

As Justin Drake prepares to reveal more details about his proposal at Devcon, and as the Ethereum community eagerly anticipates the next phase of Ethereum’s development, it seems the conversation around scalability, sharding, and zero-knowledge technology will only intensify in the coming months.