Recent events in the world of crypto indicate that a revolution may have begun, one that will fundamentally change how institutions engage with these new financial assets. Ethereum is at an inflection point in its technical evolution. Shipman expressed this sentiment simultaneously with a major uptick in institutional confidence in Bitcoin and Solana.

Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, recently called for a radical change to the Ethereum execution layer at the DevConnect ETHCC conference in Paris. The objective of our proposal is to leverage these advancements to order a major efficiency breakthrough to zero-knowledge (ZK) proof generation. This move, known as Ethereum 2.0, is largely intended to help Ethereum scale.

Ethereum's Proposed Overhaul

Buterin's proposal, made on Ethereum Magicians, suggests substituting the traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) for a system based on RISC-V. The ZK proof creation process has quickly become a new bottleneck for Ethereum’s ambitious scalability goals. Our proposed Arcology system integrates a compact RISC-V processing engine with efficient Poseidon hashing algorithms.

This new system is expected to be at least 100 times quicker than Ethereum’s existing system. It’s expected to provide productivity improvements of 50–100x. Costs and complexity would be significantly reduced with the upgrade enabling a smaller prover.

Institutional Investments Surge

At the same time, institutions are showing a strong craving for crypto investments. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw massive net inflows of $380 million on the date of April 21. BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC are the two leading ETFs in terms of daily trading volume.

Approval of four new Solana staking ETFs by Canadian regulators has been officially stamped by 3iQ, Purpose, Evolve, and CI Financial. These Solana ETFs allow institutions to outsource up to 50% of the ETF’s SOL assets to staking partners.

Market Dynamics and Future Outlook

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With approval of Solana staking ETFs in Canada, we’re one step closer. This opens up a new set of opportunities for institutions to connect with and invest in the wider Solana ecosystem. We’re still waiting to see how the market dynamics of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana will change as institutional interest continues to grow.

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Combined with other trends, these signal a continuing broadening acceptance and further integration of cryptocurrencies into mainstream finance.