Vitalik Buterin Charts a New Course for the Ethereum Foundation: Prioritizing CROPS Over Pure Speed

Author: Vitalik Buterin

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

On May 25th, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a deeply personal and insightful reflection on the future trajectory of the Ethereum Foundation (EF). His extensive post delves into the ongoing organizational transformation, strategic adjustments in resource allocation, and how Ethereum can maintain its unique identity amidst an increasingly competitive technological landscape. Buterin emphatically states that Ethereum’s true competitive edge lies not in relentlessly pursuing maximum Transactions Per Second (TPS), but in achieving unparalleled excellence in Censorship Resistance, Openness, Privacy, and Security (CROPS). Below is a detailed compilation of his perspectives.

The Ethereum Foundation’s Evolving Role: A Personal Vision

Buterin begins by clarifying that his insights are strictly personal. He emphasizes that the Foundation’s direction is not solely dictated by him, nor does he hold any special privileges on its board. The current transformation is largely spearheaded by Aerugo, with Buterin primarily contributing technical concepts. He notes that new board members are being recruited, and his influence within the EF is set to diminish – a development he openly welcomes.

While the EF saw significant improvements in efficiency and resolved long-standing issues in 2023 (likely intended as 2023, not 2025 as in the original Chinese), a new concern emerged for Buterin early this year. He frequently encountered criticism: “Vitalik constantly champions Ethereum’s decentralization, privacy, and security to the world, yet the Foundation’s internal operations often seem to contradict these very principles.”

Buterin acknowledges that some might hold a different view, perceiving the current state as positive, free of crisis, and even commending the EF’s newfound focus on execution and business development. However, he highlights a fundamental divergence in what constitutes meaningful criticism and which critiques resonate most deeply with him.

Learning from Giants: The Google Analogy

To articulate his perspective, Buterin draws an insightful parallel to Google. One might view Google as a massively successful enterprise that has profoundly benefited humanity by organizing information. Alternatively, one could see it as a company that, despite its initial “Don’t Be Evil” mantra and idealistic beginnings, gradually succumbed to the pitfalls of corporate growth, losing sight of its founding principles.

Buterin’s own view lies somewhere in between. Yet, he states unequivocally that if he possessed a button to travel back to 2008 and infuse Google with a dose of “stubbornness” and “idealism” – perhaps by granting an open-source luminary like Richard Stallman permanent veto power over Google’s policies – he would press it without hesitation.

Why such a strong stance? Because a company’s choices reverberate globally. The broader tech environment, past and present, has increasingly strayed from early idealistic roots, shifting towards profit-driven motives, centralized AI, infiltration by anti-social actors, and capitulation to government surveillance. In such a conformist landscape, Buterin argues, a large company willing to be a “thorn in the side,” steadfastly upholding fundamental principles, would be an immense boon for societal freedom and stability. This, he explains, is his understanding of diversity.

This philosophy is not unique to Buterin; it is a shared sentiment among key figures like Aya within the Foundation, guiding the definition of its mission.

Redefining the Ethereum Foundation’s Mandate: A Node, Not a Leader

Buterin emphasizes: “The Foundation has never been Ethereum’s ‘center’; it is merely one node among thousands in the ecosystem, tasked with a specific mission.” While this has always been the stated position, he observes that many, even within the EF, tend to perceive it as the “leading authority.” Now, the Foundation is committed to demonstrating through action that it is indeed just an ordinary node.

This distinction is crucial, primarily due to the EF’s inherent limitations in capacity and financial resources. The Foundation holds approximately 0.16% of all ETH – a figure significantly less than many individual Ethereum whales, and a stark contrast to other blockchain projects that often control between 10% and 50% of their native tokens. Financially, the Ethereum Foundation was originally defined by its token sale documents and launch materials to accomplish a finite scope of work (including developing chain software and completing the Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, and Serenity stages). These tasks were comprehensively achieved by 2022. It was never intended to govern Ethereum indefinitely.

Therefore, the EF is now strategically allocating its remaining resources towards long-term development rather than indiscriminate expansion – a move that also implies a reduction in ETH sales. Moving forward, the Foundation will focus on one singular mission: exclusively undertaking tasks that are absolutely vital for Ethereum to maintain its CROPS (Censorship Resistance / Capture Resistance, Openness, Privacy, and Security) properties, and which would otherwise not be accomplished without its support.

This necessitates making difficult choices, potentially excluding even highly valued activities and individuals from EF’s direct involvement. If critical tasks are to attract external capital, it becomes essential for exceptionally talented and respected individuals – even those deeply aligned with the CROPS mission – to operate outside the EF. This strategic shift also requires the EF to adopt a more opinionated cultural stance.

Ultimately, these changes are designed to foster deeper collaboration with the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Buterin acknowledges that many other parts of the Ethereum world also profoundly respect CROPS and its associated values. However, profound respect does not automatically translate into specialization and full dedication to a particular domain (much like his personal belief in animal welfare and vegetarianism doesn’t mean he adheres to a fully vegan diet at all times).

Ethereum’s Path to ‘Amazing’: Beyond TPS, Towards CROPS Extremism

The Foundation is currently in a transitional phase, expected to fully crystallize over the coming months. From a technical standpoint, Buterin’s core demand for the future Ethereum is clear: “Ethereum must be amazing.”

We live in an era of accelerating intelligence, with AI and other technologies advancing rapidly. Merely “maintaining the EVM status quo, with one or two hard forks per year to optimize for users’ short-term needs,” is no longer sufficiently compelling. For some, “amazing” might conjure images of 250-millisecond latency and 1 million TPS. Buterin firmly believes that for Ethereum to pursue this path would be a mistake. He argues that chasing maximum speed and scalability with only a marginal increase in decentralization compared to other chains is a recipe for mediocrity and, ultimately, failure.

While Ethereum must indeed scale, Buterin contends that its true path to excellence lies in pushing the boundaries of another dimension: CROPS (Censorship Resistance, Openness, Privacy, Security). Specifically, this entails:

1. Absolutely Bug-Free Ethereum: Half a year ago, this seemed like a pipe dream to security experts. However, with the advent of AI-assisted formal verification, this goal is rapidly becoming attainable. Ethereum must lead the world in this domain.
2. An Unbreakable Consensus Mechanism: Ethereum is (and with the enhancements of lean consensus, will continue to be) the only chain capable of simultaneously achieving two critical properties: first, traditional BFT-style characteristics, ensuring safety in asynchronous conditions up to very high fault tolerance; and second, Bitcoin PoW-style characteristics, ensuring safety in synchronous conditions even when facing up to 49% attackers. Buterin asserts that, to his knowledge, no other chain currently possesses or plans to implement this dual resilience. Other chains typically achieve one or the other. He has often argued that chains of Ethereum’s and Bitcoin’s caliber absolutely cannot rely on “unplugging” or social consensus to recover from a 34% node failure – a reliance that might be acceptable for chains like Hyperledger, BNB, Solana, or Tempo, but is fundamentally unacceptable for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Zcash.
3. Minimizing Intermediaries: The current reliance of many smart contract wallets and privacy protocols on third-party relays to submit transactions to the chain is, in Buterin’s words, “embarrassing” and a persistent security vulnerability. Initiatives like FOCIL and EIP-8141 (building upon previous efforts like EIP-7701 and years of dedicated work) are designed to minimize these intermediate steps in transaction submission. They aim to achieve this in a truly universal manner through public mempools and robust on-chain inclusion features, covering not just standards like secp256r1 but also diverse privacy protocols. At the user layer, Kohaku is driving efforts to reduce intermediaries, steering Ethereum away from a dystopian present where wallets don’t even verify the chain and send private data to numerous third-party servers, towards a brighter CROPS-centric future.

Buterin acknowledges that some of these objectives might seem overly ambitious, suggesting that perhaps achieving 50% of the goal might suffice (e.g., making it easy to switch if intermediaries are relied upon). However, he stresses that merely going “50% of the way” will not make Ethereum profoundly amazing in terms of CROPS. Therefore, the ambition must be to strive for 100%.

Fortunately, all these ambitious CROPS goals are entirely compatible with high TPS, which remains a significant focus of research (particularly in state scaling). Well-designed Layer 2 solutions also play a crucial role, especially those optimized for specific applications like high-frequency trading or enhanced privacy. Furthermore, these objectives are even compatible with significantly shorter block times (slot times), thanks to ongoing work such as Raul’s contributions to erasure-coded P2P and various other optimizations.

ETH as the Core Product and Collective Responsibility

Ultimately, Buterin states, the Ethereum blockchain’s most valuable “product” is the ETH asset itself. Currently, ETH secures approximately $250 billion in assets. The various characteristics of Ethereum that Buterin highlights are profoundly beneficial to the ETH asset’s long-term value and integrity.

In a testament to his conviction, Buterin reveals: “Almost 90% of my personal wealth is held in ETH, and the remaining $40 million in on-chain fiat has been donated to various open-source biotechnology, software, or hardware projects.”

However, Buterin also acknowledges that certain aspects of maintaining ETH’s value extend beyond the Foundation’s direct purview. This requires the active participation of other major players within the ecosystem – some of whom hold significantly more ETH than the Foundation itself. The EF is currently exploring ways to provide early support to these emerging organizations.

A Leaner, Principled, and Enduring Future

In conclusion, the future Ethereum Foundation will be smaller, more opinionated (perhaps even occasionally misunderstood), but ultimately more enduring. Its existence will be dedicated to ensuring that Ethereum genuinely leaves a meaningful and lasting legacy for the world. Buterin extends his gratitude to everyone, both within and outside the Foundation, who contributes to achieving this vital objective.

(The content above is an authorized excerpt and reprint from our partner PANews. Original Link)