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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin once again acknowledged the merits of the technologies underlying Bitcoin, describing them as a way to scale "ether." At the same time, he emphasized that the future of the Ethereum blockchain is not about copying any single architecture but rather combining various designs to increase throughput while maintaining the network's openness and security.
This is at least Buterin's second public statement in recent years regarding leveraging Bitcoin's advantages. In one of his earliest such remarks, he positively highlighted Bitcoin's technical simplicity: "One of the best things about Bitcoin is how beautiful and simple the protocol is."
Five years ago, in May 2021, during a period when Ethereum's price ($ETH) rose above $4.8k, Buterin criticized Bitcoin for its technological inefficiency. At that time, he also stated that Ethereum could surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization. However, since then, from the peak of that year to mid-August 2026, $ETH has depreciated by nearly 65% against Bitcoin.
As of August 17, the price of $ETH was about $1.9k, representing a 63% decline from the peak reached a year earlier. This compares to a peak of $4.9k in 2021, while Bitcoin's price has remained largely unchanged since that time (around $60k).
Buterin noted that "the Bitcoin community deserves immense gratitude for being the first to propose many ideas" that could potentially be implemented in "ether." He stated that "Ethereum should possess the best qualities" and highlighted Bitcoin's transaction recording method—UTXO—naming it as a way to scale the Ethereum blockchain without compromising the network's decentralization.
For many years, the broader crypto community criticized Bitcoin's economic model, which adheres to a strict emission cap without internal yield mechanisms. Additionally, the technical model of the leading cryptocurrency was portrayed as inefficient, slow, and costly for network participants.
Furthermore, the Bitcoin community's commitment to decentralization and the distributed nature of network governance was presented as a fundamental drawback for development and scaling.
The entire altcoin market has been built on these theses: for over a decade, developers and investors worldwide have promoted their own versions of cryptocurrency. Often, they were positioned as "Bitcoin-killer" blockchains capable of replacing it in the market capitalization rankings.
However, in recent years, developers of crypto projects have ceased using "superiority over Bitcoin" as a marketing thesis. Teams behind major blockchains have begun moving, both technically and economically, toward the principles underlying Bitcoin.
Ethereum's Scaling Plans
In his message, Buterin referred to two research papers mentioning the implementation of UTXO for Ethereum. The choice of this technology is explained simply: today, Ethereum faces the issue of rapid growth in the network's state—it increases by approximately 100 GB annually.
If the approach remains unchanged, running a full node will become too expensive for ordinary users. According to experts, this directly threatens the network's decentralization and its resilience to censorship. This is precisely why the Ethereum team is considering Bitcoin's UTXO model. Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter proposed in July 2026 implementing native UTXO payments, which do not require permanent storage of smart contract data.
It is assumed that, as a result, "ether" will store only a compact token indicating whether a coin has been spent or not. The estimated effect of the changes is as follows: with one billion records, the current account model would occupy between 100 to 150 GB, while the UTXO approach would require only about 300 MB—a reduction of nearly 99.8%. At the same time, smart contracts will remain on accounts—the approach will be hybrid, taking the best from both architectures.
