Buterin urges simplifying Ethereum protocol and calls for code ‘garbage collection’

Beincrypto reported that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in a January 18 post on X that the network must prioritize protocol simplicity and code reduction to preserve its long-term self-sovereignty. Buterin warned that excessive technical complexity could cause Ethereum to fail the “walkaway test,” a benchmark that measures whether the blockchain could continue to operate securely if its original founders and core researchers permanently left the project.

He argued that reliance on “PhD-level cryptographies” and increasingly bloated code risks narrowing accessibility and pushing the network toward a technocratic model rather than a decentralized public good. “One of my fears with Ethereum protocol development is that we can be too eager to add new features to meet highly specific needs, even if those features bloat the protocol or add entire new types of interacting components or complicated cryptography as critical dependencies,” he wrote.

To counter this, Buterin called for an explicit “garbage collection” process to delete obsolete code and dependencies, and said the path forward depends on three concrete metrics: minimizing total protocol code, reducing reliance on complex components, and increasing the number of self-sufficient invariants.

Key Topics

Crypto, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum, Garbage Collection, Walkaway Test