Vitalik: The Ethereum network should respond to 51% attacks in a more automated way

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated in his keynote speech at ETHCC in Brussels that the number of Ethereum blocks generated by malicious actors (or multiple collaborating actors) during a 51% attack would exceed the number of blocks generated by honest actors. He believes that one of the biggest concerns is that this could lead to network censorship.

He said, "We want the response to a 51% attack to be as automated as possible. So if you are a validator, your node should run software that, if it detects that transactions are being censored, or certain validators are being censored, or it is being censored— it will automatically perform counter-censorship on the majority chain, and all honest nodes will automatically coordinate on the same minority software due to the code they are running."

Buterin also advocated for increased adoption of light clients in the Ethereum infrastructure layer, particularly in wallets. He stated that they should also support zk-EVM verification to provide further support for Layer 2 networks. In addition, he believes that the protocol should be further simplified to make the work of developers and users easier.