Vitalik Buterin: The greatest value of Ethereum may be knowing when to stop upgrading

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, believes that the most important upgrade for the world’s second-largest blockchain may not be adding new features, but learning how to stop upgrading.

Last November, Buterin emphasized that locking a portion of the (base layer) can reduce errors and limit “surprises” for a network safeguarding hundreds of billions of USD in value. This month, he reinforced that view with a new approach: Ethereum needs to operate safely and usefully even if the network maintainers disappear.

He calls this standard the “walkaway test,” aiming to make Ethereum’s base layer function like trust-minimized tools (trust-minimized) that Ethereum is built to store. In other words, Ethereum should support applications as true tools—once users own them, they remain useful—rather than services that lose functionality if developers cease maintenance or are attacked.

Ethereum has long been associated with the culture of “change is a feature,” from recovering after the 2016 DAO crisis to transitioning to proof-of-stake in 2022. But Buterin argues that maturity isn’t about continuous improvement, but about building architectures that can endure without constant structural changes.

Learning from Bitcoin

Buterin explains this as a form of “Bitcoin-ification,” not copying features, but borrowing Bitcoin’s greatest advantage: reputation built on low rule-change risk. Bitcoin rarely makes fundamental changes, creating a stable, predictable foundation layer that reassures investors and risk managers.

Ethereum struggles to achieve this solely through a minimalist culture. The network must support versatile applications, which introduces other long-term risks: state growth (state growth) could cause nodes to fall behind, markets could be manipulated, and power could become centralized.

Buterin proposes “technifying” stability: working hard now so that Ethereum can cease structural changes without losing its core value. He calls this “ossification,” meaning the network can freeze without breaking.

Ossification doesn’t mean paralysis

Buterin emphasizes: ossification isn’t all-or-nothing. Ethereum can continue to evolve, but core value must not depend on features not yet in the protocol. Some layers can stabilize faster, others remain flexible. The practical goal is to shift innovation outside the base layer, to layer-2, wallets, security tools, and user applications.

The “fast on the edge, slow in the core” model has been part of Ethereum’s scaling strategy: layer-2 handles most transactions and submits proofs to the base layer. This isn’t a temporary solution but a long-term shape: layer-2 innovates, while the base layer becomes stable.

Checklist to protect Ethereum’s reputation

Buterin outlines key milestones to reduce emergency upgrade risks: quantum resistance, scalable architecture with zero-knowledge technology, long-term state design to prevent infinite growth, flexible account models, gas price mechanisms against DoS, decentralized proof-of-stake economics, and block-building mechanisms resistant to censorship.

The goal isn’t to stop changing, but to change the type of change: from fundamental forks to client optimization and parameter tuning, increasing efficiency without rewriting the network’s “social contract.” If Bitcoin minimizes change risk through governance culture, Ethereum aims to minimize risk by excluding future emergency scenarios, creating stability comparable to Bitcoin.