Cysic Co-Creation: The future of Ethereum scaling lies in hardware, not software

By Leo Fan, Co-Founder, Cysic, CoinTelegraph; Compilation: Whitewater, Golden Finance

Running Ethereum these days is like playing a modern game on a laptop from the 80s of the 20th century – outdated hardware is hard to load, will lag endlessly, and is likely to collapse under the weight of new demand. Ethereum's infrastructure was designed for the simpler blockchain era, but it has fallen short of the times and can only process between 10 and 62 transactions per second, well below the thousands of transactions required for mainstream adoption. **

At the same time, with sub-second block times and near-zero fees, Solana is becoming increasingly popular in the mainstream, as evidenced by the surge in wallet downloads during the launch of TRUMP. Ethereum is still hampered by high gas fees and congestion, forcing users and developers to switch to faster alternatives.

If its scaling bottlenecks are not addressed, Ethereum is at risk of falling behind. While Ethereum's Layer 2 (L2) rollups alleviate network congestion, they are ultimately only a stopgap measure to provide temporary relief. The software-first approach ran into incipient issues with interoperability and scalability, raising questions about Ethereum's long-term sustainability and relevance.

**Many L2s are designed to fit into the native network and cannot support real-time applications such as decentralized gaming or cross-border payments. If Ethereum wants to stay ahead of the curve in the blockchain space, it needs to make a fundamental shift. The solution lies not in incremental software updates, but in hardware acceleration. **

Combine Ethereum's vision with hardware

**Vitalik Buterin's Verge milestone envisions Ethereum enabling full node verification on consumer-grade devices, a key step toward the broader goal of blockchain accessibility and decentralization. Buterin emphasized moving from a patchwork of solutions to building a comprehensive computing infrastructure to achieve this vision. **Dedicated hardware, such as application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), is key: it increases transaction processing speed, reduces latency, and optimizes energy use. It lays the foundation for sustainable Ethereum scaling, ensuring that the network grows without compromising its core principles. **

Ethereum's Pectra upgrade also doesn't fully address its underlying scaling challenges, highlighting the urgency to enhance scalability and stability. The key optimizations introduced – account abstraction and enhanced validator operations – are designed to improve Ethereum's efficiency and user experience, but do not significantly increase transaction throughput or reduce network latency.

Without specialized hardware, Ethereum could fall behind, weakening its position as a settlement layer for the blockchain community. Investing in hardware-native solutions will allow Ethereum to scale efficiently while maintaining its commitment to decentralization and supporting a growing user base.

Mainstream Adoption and Practical Application

The impact of hardware scaling solutions extends far beyond Ethereum itself. **TradFi participants are exploring blockchain-based cross-border payments, which require real-time processing. Due to scalability issues inherited from the main layer, L2 alone cannot effectively scale to meet pure TradFi needs. Cross-border transactions reached $190.1 trillion in 2023 and are expected to continue to grow in 2025, demonstrating that hardware acceleration is essential to incentivize blockchain adoption by institutions. **

In addition to finance, hardware optimizations have enhanced the utility of blockchain in various industries, accelerating mainstream adoption. A notable example is healthcare, where an accelerated blockchain infrastructure can improve the security and privacy of patient data. For the gaming industry, which relies on dynamic interactions, blockchain networks can help respond to user actions in real-time.

Artificial Intelligence Factor

Blockchains don't operate in isolation; It competes with compute-intensive industries such as the buzzword artificial intelligence in 2024. The rise of artificial intelligence is reshaping the industry, but it is also becoming a fierce competitor to blockchain in power and equipment. Data centers such as Hut 8 and Coin Scientific are prioritizing AI workloads, which can generate up to 25 times more revenue than Bitcoin mining. These moves highlight the increasing pressure on blockchain networks to optimize resource efficiency or risk being marginalized in the race for computing dominance.

Critics claim that Ethereum is "dying slowly." Ethereum was once the birthplace of decentralized finance (DeFi) innovation, but its scalability issues hindered its ability to compete with DeFAI. Ethereum must employ specialized hardware to solve its inefficient infrastructure problems, enable faster transactions, and reduce energy consumption. In this way, Ethereum has the opportunity to respond to the development of AI and maintain its competitive advantage in mainstream adoption. **

Now is the time to invest in hardware

Ethereum relies heavily on L2 to scale, but they remain a temporary solution that does not meet the basic operational needs of the network. Hardware solutions are now non-negotiable for Ethereum to maintain its position as a leader in blockchain innovation. From enabling seamless TradFi integration to enabling real-time interactions in gaming and healthcare, dedicated hardware solves the fundamental problem of inefficiencies in Ethereum's infrastructure. Without decisive investment in hardware acceleration, Ethereum could stagnate, while competitors rise.

Ethereum doesn't need another short-term patch. It requires a long-lasting solution. The next wave of blockchain adoption requires infrastructure that can support it, which means investing in hardware now.