Offchain Labs Disputes Vitalik’s RISC-V Proposal for Ethereum’s Layer 1

TLDR

• Offchain Labs has raised concerns over Vitalik Buterin’s proposal to use RISC-V for Ethereum’s execution layer.
• The team at Offchain Labs argues that RISC-V is not the optimal choice for both ZK proofs and smart contract deployment.
• Offchain Labs believes that WebAssembly (WASM) offers better long-term benefits for Ethereum’s smart contract infrastructure.
• Offchain Labs has already developed a prototype showing that WASM can be used for contract delivery with RISC-V for proving.
• The researchers highlight that ZK proving costs have dropped significantly, reducing the need for further optimization.

Offchain Labs, the primary developer behind Ethereum Layer 2 solution Arbitrum, has raised concerns over Vitalik Buterin’s proposal. The company challenges Buterin’s idea to transition Ethereum’s execution layer to RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA). Offchain Labs argues that WebAssembly (WASM) provides greater long-term advantages for smart contract delivery and storage on Ethereum.

Offchain Labs Questions RISC-V’s Role in Smart Contract Delivery

In a detailed post published on Ethereum Research on Nov. 20, Offchain Labs’ researchers criticized Buterin’s assumption. They argue that a single ISA should not handle both ZK proofs and smart contract deployment. “We support these goals but question Vitalik’s implicit assumption that one ISA can optimally serve both ZK-proving and smart contract delivery,” the researchers wrote.

Offchain Labs’ team distinguishes between two types of ISAs: a “delivery ISA” (dISA) for uploading contracts and a “proving ISA” (pISA) used by ZK virtual machines. They believe these two roles should be handled separately. The team contends that combining them into a single ISA, such as RISC-V, could limit flexibility.

Offchain Labs has already shown this approach in action. The company has built a prototype where Arbitrum blocks are ZK-proven by first compiling WASM to RISC-V. This method allows the use of a RISC-V-based ZK-VM to prove the execution. The team points out that this demonstrates the viability of using WASM as a delivery format while utilizing RISC-V for proving.

WASM Offers Better Long-Term Solution for Ethereum

The Offchain Labs team also questioned whether RISC-V would remain the best option as the ZK proving landscape evolves. They note that recent shifts in RISC-V implementations, from 32-bit to 64-bit versions, indicate rapid changes in the proving space. Relying on RISC-V for Ethereum’s execution layer could lock Ethereum into a specific proving technology just as better alternatives emerge.

The team highlights that ZK proving costs have decreased significantly, making further optimization less urgent.

As a result, Offchain Labs believes it is unnecessary to focus exclusively on optimising for proving efficiency.

Offchain Labs stresses the advantages of WASM for Ethereum’s execution layer. The researchers point to its structured design, which makes code modification and optimisation easier without disrupting existing contracts. WASM is also compatible with standard hardware, whereas most Ethereum nodes lack RISC-V CPUs and would require emulation.

WASM’s mature tooling ecosystem, battle-tested across billions of execution environments, is another key advantage. Offchain Labs sees WASM as an ideal solution for the smart contract ecosystem, providing a common intermediate layer for diverse programming languages and backend systems.

The post Offchain Labs Disputes Vitalik’s RISC-V Proposal for Ethereum’s Layer 1 appeared first on CoinCentral.