Buterin warns Ethereum against compromising decentralization for mainstream adoption

Buterin’s position centers on a simple threshold: infrastructure and apps should keep running without dependence on any single operator, web host, or legal entity. He frames this as a return to Ethereum’s founding priorities after years of chasing scale and growth via shortcuts that introduced centralized choke points.

In practical terms, the “walkaway test” demands designs that survive Cloudflare suspensions, corporate bankruptcies or political pressure, with users retaining access and control of their assets throughout. The ethos applies across layers – from base-layer protocol and data availability to wallets and consumer dapps – and ties directly to goals like quantum-safety, sustainable throughput via ZK proofs, and limiting state growth so that upgrades are optional rather than existential.

Vitalik sees usability and decentralization as co-requirements: products must be easy at scale yet architected so no single party can be compelled to censor or revoke access. Examples in the ecosystem, such as decentralized messaging stacks that avoid centralized servers, are cited as blueprints for what “actually decentralized” apps should look like.

The message lands as teams weigh trade-offs among latency, cost and sovereignty. His bar for acceptable compromises is higher: minimize trusted intermediaries, design exit paths for users, and ensure the network remains reliable even if core developers “walk away.” That framing places the burden on builders to avoid brittle dependencies now – not after growth – to prevent future failures at the exact moment mainstream users arrive.

Such renewed emphasis follows years of rapid scaling and commercialization across L2s and consumer apps, where convenience often meant relying on centralized RPCs, sequencers, or hosting. Buterin’s current guidance consolidates prior themes – neutrality, credible exit, client diversity and long-term resilience – into a single litmus test meant to guide technical roadmaps and product choices in 2026.