Buterin says Ethereum must stop sacrificing decentralization and privacy for adoption

Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin said the ecosystem's core values of decentralization, privacy and self‑sovereignty have been sacrificed in pursuit of mainstream adoption and that the trend must stop. Buterin posted to X that "2026 is the year that we take back lost ground in terms of self‑sovereignty and trustlessness," adding, "In 2026, no longer.

Every compromise of values that Ethereum has made up to this point... we are making that compromise no longer." To reverse the backsliding, Buterin said he wants improved private payments, a lower barrier to entry for users to run full nodes, decentralized apps that don’t run on centralized servers, easier user control of onchain data and better social recovery wallets to protect funds when seed phrases are lost or stolen.

"In many of these areas, over the last ten years we have seen serious backsliding in Ethereum," he said. "Nodes went from easy to run to hard to run. Dapps went from static pages to complicated behemoths that leak all your data to a dozen servers." Buterin said upcoming upgrades, including the Kohaku release and the Glamsterdam fork, are expected to address some of these issues.

Key Topics

Crypto, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum, Glamsterdam Fork, Private Payments, Decentralized Stablecoins