Vitalik Buterin claims that replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with RISC-V could improve zero-knowledge (ZK) proof efficiency by 50 to 100 times. However, is RISC-V truly superior? The EVM has been a stable, battle-tested environment for approximately nine years, while RISC-V lacks substantial real-world experience in blockchain execution contexts. Although PolkaVM has adopted RISC-V, I believe it has not been adequately validated, as it has yet to be thoroughly proven on a mainnet.
The EVM is specifically optimized for smart contract execution, whereas RISC-V, designed as a general-purpose architecture, may lack tailored optimizations for blockchain use cases. While RISC-V’s versatility allows the use of programming languages from other blockchains, Vitalik himself noted that improvements leveraging existing Solidity are preferable. Transitioning the entire ecosystem to a new architecture is a daunting challenge.
Implementing RISC-V in software inevitably leads to performance degradation. Using an emulator for software-based execution raises doubts about its ability to process tasks efficiently. On the other hand, adopting RISC-V hardware would entail significant transition costs. I believe that ZK-EVMs already provide sufficient efficiency for current needs. When considering the costs of development, the effort required for transition, and the potential for unforeseen errors, replacing the EVM with RISC-V does not seem like a compelling approach.
While transitioning to RISC-V may offer potential benefits, I argue that improving ZK-EVMs and optimizing the existing EVM are more practical and stable alternatives.