Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin Proposes RISC-V to Overhaul Smart Contract Execution

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's co-founder, has proposed a significant shift for the blockchain: replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with RISC-V, a modern, open-source instruction set architecture (ISA). This EIP, first proposed on April 20 of 2025, is intended to make Ethereum’s execution layer faster and more efficient. The move could potentially solve one of the most criticized points of the blockchain industry: scalability.

RISC-V, pronounced “risk five,” provides a more efficient instruction set for executing smart contracts. The proposal builds on RISC-V’s native support for compatibility with zero-knowledge (ZK) proof systems. It further reduces the overhead of various general smart contract execution to cut out EVM overhead. This transition alone can provide incredible data processing efficiency improvements, up to 100x times more efficient. This will allow for faster smart contract execution times while reducing computational resource consumption.

RISC-V: A Modern Architecture for Ethereum

Among these, RISC-V has emerged as the most promising and exciting open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) based on the principles of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture. Its open-source nature encourages innovation and customization, enabling developers to optimize the architecture to best suit the application. This is a stark contrast to the EVM, which has built-in limitations that constrain performance and scalability.

Buterin's proposal highlights the potential of RISC-V to improve Ethereum's execution layer. The current EVM has become a barrier to scalability as the blockchain struggles to process transactions in a timely and cost-effective manner. RISC-V presents an opportunity to create a more simple and efficient execution environment.

Moving Ethereum’s execution layer to RISC-V would be a massive win for efficiency. This improvement would go a long way toward fixing one of the highest-profile scaling bottlenecks. All in all, it can be a huge step to make the execution layer easier to work with!

Implementation Approaches

Buterin described a few different ways to bring RISC-V to the Ethereum ecosystem. These opportunities and projects run the gamut from enabling two customized virtual machines (VMs) to run in parallel, to a full architecture switch-over to RISC-V. One such approach is allowing contracts to be developed and deployed in the current EVM model or RISC-V.

With this model, both EVM and RISC-V contract types would be able to utilize core functionalities. These features are persistent storage, the ability to maintain ETH (Ether) balances, and the ability to send and receive calls. This hybrid approach would allow for a gradual transition, enabling developers to adopt RISC-V without immediately rewriting all existing contracts.

The ecosystem shift necessary to adopt RISC-V would involve rewriting existing EVM contracts to interface with a novel EVM interpreter. Compared to new contracts, this work could be written in a RISC-V format, directly harnessing the efficiency gains.

Community Considerations and Potential Impacts

As much as the proposal has sparked enthusiasm, it needs to be seen with a more critical eye and discussed further within the Ethereum community. We realize that when it comes to the RISC-V transition, this is a big and complicated task. There are definitely impacts on current infrastructure and smart contracts.

"Agree, it seems like a good idea for the L1 that solves points 2 and 3 of the L1 bottlenecks. But is this the set of priorities we want to solve for, especially given the scale of technical cost here?" - Adam Cochran

Broxus @np. broxus, an anonymous EVM commenter harangued the EVM as being too based on U256. They claimed that moving to RISC-V would be a net loss to execution performance.

"The risk here is that ZK-proving may get better, but block building and execution will deteriorate significantly," - Ben Adams

Despite these valid concerns, the upside of RISC-V is massive. RISC-V dramatically increases the efficiency and scalability of Ethereum’s execution layer. It would make possible wider adoption and the creation of even more sophisticated decentralized applications.

Despite these concerns, the potential benefits of RISC-V are significant. By improving the efficiency and scalability of Ethereum's execution layer, RISC-V could pave the way for wider adoption and more complex decentralized applications.