Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has declared that the network’s long-term survival depends on drastically simplifying its protocol.
In a January 18 post on X, Buterin argued that the blockchain is becoming too dense for independent verification. According to him, excessive technical complexity threatens its fundamental sovereignty.
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Ethereum Co-founder Advocates for Code ‘Garbage Collection’
He argued that relying on “PhD-level cryptographies” and increasingly bloated code risks narrowing Ethereum’s accessibility. In that scenario, the network could drift toward a technocratic model rather than remain a decentralized public good.
Considering this, he restated the concept of the “walkaway test” as a critical benchmark for success. This test measures whether the blockchain could continue to operate securely if its original founders and core researchers permanently left the project.
Buterin warned that Ethereum currently risks failing this test because its operations are too complex for new teams to manage without expert guidance.
He explained that developers are often eager to add new features to achieve short-term functionality. Over time, that habit creates technical debt he described as “highly destructive” to the network’s future.
“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.
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To counter this, Buterin called for an explicit “garbage collection” function within the development process—a mandate to delete obsolete code and dependencies.
“Garbage collection can be piecemeal, or it can be large-scale. The piecemeal approach tries to take existing features, and streamline them so that they are simpler and make more sense,” he explained.
Considering this, he said the path forward depends on three concrete metrics. These include minimizing total protocol code, reducing reliance on complex components, and increasing the number of self-sufficient invariants.
Buterin pointed to Ethereum’s transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake as a successful example of this philosophy in action.
He framed the transition not merely as an upgrade, but as a necessary purge of legacy mechanisms that had become inefficient.
Meanwhile, this disclosure signals a potential slowdown in the rollout of experimental features. The network appears to be prioritizing its evolution into a verifiable, automated settlement layer.
“In the long term, I hope that the rate of change to Ethereum can be slower. I think for various reasons that ultimately that _must_ happen. These first fifteen years should in part be viewed as an adolescence stage where we explored a lot of ideas and saw what works and what is useful and what is not,” Buterin stated.
By prioritizing auditability over complexity, Buterin aims to ensure Ethereum remains secure without requiring a centralized team of experts to maintain it.