Ethereum Price Forecast: Vitalik Buterin hints at cypherpunk 'Bolt-On' upgrade for L1

Ethereum price today: $1,960

• Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed plans for the blockchain's future in response to comments concerning shutting down the network.
• Buterin proposed a "cypherpunk principled non-ugly Ethereum" upgrade as a replacement for the current system.
• ETH has to recover the 20-day EMA to ease downside risk.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sparked excitement in the crypto community with his latest vision for the blockchain's future.

In a Friday X post, Buterin rejected calls to abandon the current Ethereum network due to issues such as fragmentation caused by layer-2 solutions and institutional influence. Instead, he proposed building a "cypherpunk principled non-ugly Ethereum" as a tightly integrated "bolt-on" addition to the existing system.

The idea aims to revive Ethereum's original ideals of decentralization, privacy and censorship resistance without disrupting its ecosystem.

Buterin's plan involves growing the new bolt-on alongside the main network while infusing key cypherpunk features into the base layer, such as stronger censorship resistance, zero-knowledge proof compatibility and simpler consensus mechanisms.

He envisions a five-year timeline, which could be accelerated by AI coding and verification, to optionally migrate the old system into smart contracts on the upgraded framework. 

Drawing from Ethereum's successful "Merge" upgrade in 2022, Buterin believes the network can handle four more major shifts, including state tree restructuring and a full virtual machine overhaul.

"Ethereum has already made jet engine changes in-flight once (the merge), we can do it ~4 times more," he wrote.

The proposal comes amid growing debates on Ethereum's scaling strategy. For years, the rollup-centric roadmap relied heavily on L2s to handle high transaction volumes off the mainnet. However, Buterin recently noted that L2s have decentralized more slowly than expected, while the base layer has advanced rapidly, making the original vision outdated.

Ethereum Price Forecast: Recovery above 20-day EMA could ease downside risk

Ethereum has seen $35.4 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, led by $18 million in short liquidations, per Coinglass data.

In the daily chart, ETH/USDT trades at $1,967. The 20-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $2,123 slopes lower, capping rebounds and signaling a prevailing bearish bias.

Immediate resistance aligns at $2,107, followed by $2,388. Support is seen at $1,741 and $1,524. A close above the 20-day EMA could ease downside pressure and open $2,388 and then $2,746, while a break under $1,404 would expose deeper weakness.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) are below their neutral levels, indicating a sustained bearish momentum.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool.)