In this article for EE Times, Daniela Barbosa, General Manager of Decentralized Technologies at the Linux Foundation and Executive Director of LF Decentralized Trust, argues that RISC-V isn’t just another hardware architecture – it may become a foundational pillar for the future of blockchain systems. She outlines how the open, minimalistic ISA of RISC-V could serve as a clean execution layer for smart contracts and zero-knowledge VMs, bridging the worlds of open hardware and cryptography. If you’re interested in where blockchain might head next, this piece offers a compelling roadmap for a convergence that’s only just begun.

Daniela will expand on these ideas next week at RISC-V Summit North America, where she’ll join industry leaders to explore how open collaboration is shaping the next generation of compute and trust technologies. There’s still time to register to attend—don’t miss the chance to be part of something truly transformative.

Why RISC-V + Blockchain Is the Conversation I’ve Been Waiting to Have

The open RISC-V ISA has always been about freedom and flexibility in hardware design. Now a compelling new use case gives developers a software-only abstraction layer, taking privacy and flexibility to new heights.

There are rarely moments in technology when two open ecosystems simply ‘click’ into place. Yet here I am, feeling like the officiant between two such entities: the open hardware standard RISC-V, and the shared, immutable digital ledger that is blockchain.

What Does RISC-V Offer Blockchain?

RISC-V’s openness and simplicity has made it a magnet for hardware innovation, and I imagine the majority of the talks you’ll hear at this year’s RISC-V Summit North America will discuss the journey from design to tapeout, and what happens once RISC-V delivers in hardware form.

But RISC-V’s role in blockchain doesn’t involve silicon. Blockchain platforms traditionally execute smart contracts on specialized virtual machines with bespoke instruction sets, such as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Earlier this year, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote about a long-term, exploratory idea to one day replace the EVM with RISC-V. This was a conceptual discussion rather than a concrete roadmap, but one that’s important for the RISC-V community to pay attention to.

In theory, this approach would treat RISC-V as a software-only abstraction layer. Contracts could be written in familiar languages, then compiled and executed as if running on a physical RISC-V processor, all within the blockchain’s VM context.

From a long-term strategic standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. RISC-V is a clean, minimal instruction set that’s easier to model and prove than many legacy VMs. It has only a modest number of instructions, and omits complex, multi-step operations in favor of efficient, orthogonal primitives that map well to blockchain’s arithmetic constraints. And its shared open ethos means that developers can tap into a rich ecosystem of existing tools such as industry-grade compilers, debuggers, and formal verification tools for smart contracts.

Read the full article at EE Times