Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin used a New Year’s message on Thursday to reflect on a year of major technical advancements — and to argue that the real test of the network lies in accomplishing its original mission, not chasing the latest crypto narratives.
In his New Year’s post on He highlighted improvements that allow the network to process more activity, reduce bottlenecks, and make it easier to run the software that keeps Ethereum running.
Taken together, he said, these changes bring Ethereum closer to becoming a new type of shared computing platform rather than just another blockchain.
But Buterin made it clear that technical steps alone are not the end goal.
“Ethereum needs to do more to achieve its own stated goals,” he wrote, warning against what he described as efforts to “win the next meta,” whether through token dollars, political memecoins, or attempts to artificially boost use of the network for economic signaling purposes.
Instead, Buterin returned to a long-held vision of Ethereum as a “world computer” – a shared, neutral platform for applications that can operate without relying on centralized intermediaries.
This vision, he believes, focuses on applications designed to operate without fraud, censorship or third-party control, even if their original developers disappear. Buterin pointed to “leakage testing,” the idea that systems should continue to function regardless of who maintains them, as a fundamental benchmark. He also emphasized resilience, saying users shouldn’t notice if major infrastructure providers go offline or are compromised.
These properties, he suggested, once described everyday tools before the rise of subscription-based digital services that lock users into centralized platforms. “Ethereum is the rebellion against this,” Buterin wrote.
To succeed, he argued, Ethereum must meet two requirements simultaneously: it must be usable globally and it must remain truly decentralized. This challenge applies not only to the blockchain itself, including the software used to run nodes and interact with the network, but also to the applications built on top of it, which often rely on centralized services despite the use of decentralized protocols.
Buterin acknowledged that progress is already being made and noted that there are now powerful tools to push efforts further. His message was less of a roadmap for a single upgrade and more of a reminder of the importance of recent technical work: positioning Ethereum as sustainable infrastructure for finance, identity, governance, and other foundational internet services.
Whether Ethereum can meet these ambitions will become clearer as the next phase of the network moves from upgrades to real-world use, testing how its ideals hold up at scale.
