Charles Hoskinson Backs Vitalik Buterin’s RISC-V Vision for Ethereum’s Future
In a rare moment of consensus between two of crypto’s most prominent figures, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has publicly backed Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s latest technical proposal—a potential overhaul of Ethereum’s execution layer.
The brief exchange occurred on Sunday after Buterin published his “Long-term L1 execution layer proposal” on the Ethereum Magicians forum. Hoskinson responded on X with a simple but pointed endorsement:
“It makes sense, we are using RISC-V with BitVMX. It’s the future.”
Buterin Proposes Replacing EVM With RISC-V
Buterin’s proposal suggests retiring the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in favor of RISC-V, an open-source and extensible instruction set architecture. He argues that the change would massively increase efficiency in Ethereum’s execution layer, resolve key scaling bottlenecks, and simplify the core codebase—without altering Ethereum’s familiar account model or opcode structure.
“SLOAD, SSTORE, CALL—these opcodes would be exposed as RISC-V syscalls,” Buterin explained, emphasizing compatibility with existing smart contracts.
To maintain backward compatibility, Buterin outlined several paths: from dual-VM environments to a full interpreter-based migration.
ZK Proof Efficiency at the Core
The primary technical motivation is rooted in zero-knowledge proof performance. Drawing on data from Succinct’s ZK-EVM, Buterin points out that block execution consumes nearly half of all prover cycles—making it the most expensive operation in ZK circuits.
Other tasks, such as input deserialization, state root computation, and witness initialization, also contribute significantly, but Buterin argues that eliminating EVM translation layers through direct RISC-V integration could yield up to 100x performance improvements in some cases.
Even if other elements like pre-compiles become the new bottlenecks, he believes the switch to RISC-V would bring “very significant” gains in performance and scalability.
Growing Convergence in Blockchain Architecture
Hoskinson’s affirmation of the RISC-V approach adds intrigue.
While Cardano and Ethereum have often been seen as rivals, this shared interest in a standardized, low-level architecture could point to a broader alignment of blockchain infrastructure goals, especially as both ecosystems pursue ZK-based scalability.
With industry giants now eyeing RISC-V as the next frontier for execution optimization, the stage may be set for a new era of modular, interoperable blockchain design.
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
