Ethereum Breaks Through the Impossible Triangle: From Decade-Long Debates to Technical Practice

“Impossible Triangle” surely is no stranger to the blockchain community. Since the advent of Ethereum, this concept has been like a “dismal physical law” hanging over every developer— you can choose two out of three core factors: decentralization, security, and scalability, but the condition is that one must be sacrificed. However, looking back from early 2026, things seem to be gradually changing. Technologies like PeerDAS and ZKP are no longer just paper concepts; they have become system components deployed in practice. Recently, Vitalik Buterin emphasized that, with the support of these technologies, Ethereum’s scalability could increase by thousands of times, and this is entirely compatible with decentralization.

Will the “Impossible Triangle”—which has been considered a thorny problem for a decade—truly vanish when PeerDAS, ZK technology, and Abstract Accounts reach maturity?

Technical Constraints: Why Has the Impossible Triangle Been Unbreakable for So Long?

First, let’s revisit the concept of the “Blockchain Scalability Trilemma” proposed by Vitalik Buterin. The three factors that any public blockchain must balance are:

Decentralization: Low node participation threshold, broad participation from everywhere, no reliance on any single entity.

Security: The system maintains consistency against malicious behavior, censorship, and potential attacks.

Scalability: High throughput, low latency, providing a better user experience.

The core issue is: in traditional architectures, these three factors often hinder each other. Increasing throughput usually means raising hardware requirements or introducing centralized mechanisms. Reducing load on nodes can weaken security assumptions. Strictly maintaining absolute decentralization makes performance sacrifices inevitable.

Over the past 5-10 years, various public blockchains have offered different answers. Early EOS sacrificed decentralization for high performance. Polkadot and Cosmos used centralized validation mechanisms. Solana, Sui, Aptos pursued maximum performance by increasing hardware demands. The common point among most solutions is: only two of the three factors can be satisfied simultaneously, and the third must be sacrificed.

All these solutions are caught in the logic of a “single-blockchain”—if you want to run fast, nodes must be powerful; if you want many nodes, they must run slowly. This seems to have become a perpetual cycle difficult to escape.

However, if we look back at Ethereum’s development path—shifting entirely to a multi-layer architecture centered on Rollups from 2020, along with recent maturity of technologies like ZK Proof—we see a different picture: The fundamental logic of the “Impossible Triangle” has been gradually restructured over the past 5 years through the modular evolution of Ethereum. In other words, this issue is no longer just a philosophical debate; there have been tangible technical advances.

Three Technological Approaches: The “Divide and Conquer” Strategy

Ethereum is simultaneously pushing multiple technological tracks to break free from the constraints of this triangle.

PeerDAS: Separating Data Availability

In the impossible triangle, data availability is often the chain’s shackles limiting scalability. Traditional blockchains require each full node to download and verify the entire block data—this ensures security but limits scalability. That’s why recently, “disruptive” DA solutions like Celestia have attracted attention.

However, Ethereum’s approach is not to make nodes more powerful, but to change how nodes verify data. PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) is the core solution:

Instead of requiring each node to download the entire block data, PeerDAS uses probabilistic sampling to check availability. Block data is split and encrypted; nodes only sample a random subset of data. If data is hidden or unavailable, the probability of detection via sampling quickly amplifies—mathematically designed so any node can detect issues.

The result: data throughput can be significantly improved, yet ordinary nodes can still participate in verification. This is not a sacrifice of decentralization for performance, but an intelligent optimization of verification costs through mathematics and engineering design.

Vitalik emphasizes that PeerDAS is no longer just a paper concept but a system component deployed in practice. This means Ethereum has truly taken a concrete step toward “Scalability × Decentralization.”

zkEVM: Verification Instead of Re-Execution

Second is zkEVM, which aims to solve the problem of “whether each node needs to re-execute all computations” through proof-based verification that does not reveal information.

Core idea: enable the main Ethereum network to generate and verify ZK proofs. After each block executes, it outputs a mathematical proof that can be verified, allowing other nodes to confirm correctness without re-computation.

Advantages of zkEVM focus on three aspects:

• Faster verification: Nodes do not need to re-execute transactions, only verify zkProofs to confirm block validity.

• Lighter load: Reduces computational and storage burdens on full nodes. In size, a single zk proof is less than 300 KB—more precisely, about 300 kilobytes, which is larger than hundreds of bytes but much smaller than megabytes. This size optimization is crucial for network data transmission.

• Stronger security: Compared to OP paths, ZK state proofs are verified on-chain in real-time, with higher resistance to forgery and clearer security boundaries.

Recently, the Ethereum Foundation officially released the real-time proof standard for L1 zkEVM, marking the first time ZK technology has been integrated into mainnet technical planning. Over the next year, the mainnet will gradually transition to an execution environment supporting zkEVM verification, shifting from “heavy execution” to “proof verification.”

According to EF’s technical roadmap, the goal is to keep block proof latency within 10 seconds, with 128-bit security, and plans to enable household devices to participate in proof generation—reducing participation barriers and maintaining decentralization.

Other Technological Tracks: Long-term Efforts

Beyond these two, there are plans for Ethereum before 2030 (like The Surge, The Verge, etc.), focusing on increasing throughput, restructuring state models, adjusting Gas limits, improving execution layers, and more. These are all experimental and accumulative paths to overcome the traditional triangle limits.

Importantly, these are not isolated upgrades but clearly designed as overlapping, mutually reinforcing modules. This reflects Ethereum’s “technical attitude” toward the impossible triangle: not seeking a magic one-size-fits-all solution like single-blockchain, but restructuring multi-layer architecture, redistributing costs and risks.

Vision for 2030: What Will Ethereum Look Like?

Nevertheless, we must remain cautious. Decentralization is not a static technical metric but the result of long-term evolution. Ethereum is gradually exploring the boundaries of the impossible triangle through practical engineering.

With changes in verification methods (from re-execution to sampling), data structures (from growing state to expiring state), and execution models (from monolithic to modular), the initial trade-offs are shifting. We are approaching an endpoint where users can “have both,” “want both,” and “get both.”

These technical efforts from Ethereum from 2020 to 2026, and plans extending to 2030, are not just technological upgrades. They represent a different approach to the impossible triangle—not seeking a quick fix, but through complex coordination of multiple technologies, gradually expanding what is achievable. This is Ethereum’s step-by-step journey to solve one of the industry’s most challenging problems.