Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin has reiterated the sustainability vision for the blockchain. He says the goal is to ensure that the blockchain passes the "walkaway test" so that the Ethereum base does not need to depend on human intervention.
Ethereum's long-term value needs more than upgrades
In a post on X, Buterin emphasized that Ethereum should work safely and usefully at all times, even if its core developers completely walked away tomorrow. He maintained that no company, development group or informal leadership should be required to keep the ecosystem functional.
The Ethereum founder argues that if people stop upgrading the blockchain or maintaining it, it should not suffer a collapse, freeze users’ funds or become unsafe for use.
"This means that Ethereum must get to a place where we can ossify if we want to… we must get to a place where Ethereum's value proposition does not strictly depend on any features that are not in the protocol already," he stated.
Buterin is not implying that Ethereum should stop evolving; rather, it must grow to a level, even without any change initiated, where the blockchain exists and thrives.
Ethereum itself must pass the walkaway test.
Ethereum is meant to be a home for trustless and trust-minimized applications, whether in finance, governance or elsewhere. It must support applications that are more like tools - the hammer that once you buy it's yours - than like…
This suggests that Ethereum needs to evolve to a level where upgrades would be optional, not a necessity. In essence, Ethereum’s value proposition should be complete enough to guarantee stability in design.
In order to achieve this level of development, Buterin highlighted some nonnegotiable foundations that Ethereum must ensure are in place.
Primarily, Buterin insists that Ethereum must be safe from quantum computers by achieving "full quantum-resistance." He noted that it was not advisable to wait until the last minute, as the base layer cannot afford to take risks.
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Nonnegotiable features for Ethereum
Additionally, Ethereum must attain scalability that does not require constant redesigns. Buterin said the protocol needs to expand to many thousands of TPS, particularly ZK-EVM validation and data sampling via PeerDAS.
The Ethereum founder also stressed the need for the blockchain state, that is, accounts, storage and history, not to grow endlessly. Buterin implies that Ethereum needs to move away from hard-coded ECDSA signatures and rigid account logic. He wants the ecosystem to shift toward flexible, programmable accounts.
Buterin also believes that gas pricing must correctly reflect computational costs and be safe for both execution and zero-knowledge proving. The blockchain should also be able to prevent "denial-of-service vectors" forever, not just temporarily.
Overall, he wants Ethereum to evolve to a level where decentralization is not just about governance today but irreversibility tomorrow. The blockchain should also attain the highest form of credibility for its users.
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