Vitalik Buterin’s Hilarious Plan to Simplify Ethereum: A Comedy of Errors!

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In a most enlightening declaration, the illustrious co-founder of Ethereum, a certain Vitalik Buterin, has boldly proclaimed that the very longevity of this network-nay, its survival!-depends on a radical simplification of its intricate protocol.

In a post dated January 18, and shared with the eager masses on the platform known as X, Buterin asserted that the blockchain is becoming a veritable labyrinth, too dense for the independent verification our dear friends deserve. He laments that this excessive technical complexity poses a dire threat to the fundamental sovereignty of the blockchain, which, one must say, sounds rather dramatic, does it not? 😅

Ethereum Co-founder Calls for a ‘Garbage Collection’-No, Not Your Kitchen!

He mused about the perils of leaning on “PhD-level cryptographies” and bloated code, which might just turn Ethereum into a technocracy-a far cry from its noble beginnings as a decentralized public good. Imagine, if you will, a world where only the highly educated can partake in this grand digital revolution! How quaint! 🍵

“An important, and perennially underrated, aspect of ‘trustlessness’, ‘passing the walkaway test’ and ‘self-sovereignty’ is protocol simplicity.”

– vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 18, 2026

He reiterated the concept of the “walkaway test”-a delightful benchmark, if I may say so! This test whimsically assesses whether the blockchain could soldier on securely, even in the absence of its original founders and core researchers. Quite the thought experiment! 🎩

But alas, Buterin warned that Ethereum currently teeters on the edge of failure in this test because its operations are, how shall I put it, entangled in a web of complexity that would befuddle even the most seasoned newcomers without expert guidance. What a pickle! 🥒

In his sagaciousness, he elucidated that developers, in their zeal, often rush to add features to meet immediate demands, thus accumulating what he terms “technical debt”-a rather destructive habit for the future of this grand network. Ah, the irony of digital progress! 💻

“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 lamented.

To remedy this chaotic situation, Buterin has proposed an explicit “garbage collection” function within the development process. Yes, folks, he wants to delete obsolete code and dependencies with all the enthusiasm of a spring cleaning! 🧹

“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, perhaps while sipping tea and contemplating the cosmos.

Henceforth, he suggested that the path forward hinges upon three concrete metrics-minimizing total protocol code, reducing reliance on complex components, and boosting the number of self-sufficient invariants. Simple enough, right?

He pointed to Ethereum’s glorious transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake as a shining example of this philosophy at work, framing it not merely as an upgrade but as a necessary purge of archaic mechanisms that had become rather cumbersome. The audacity! 🙃

Meanwhile, this revelation hints at a potential slowdown in the rollout of experimental features, as the network appears to prioritize its metamorphosis into a verifiable, automated settlement layer. Who knew evolution could be so tedious?

“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 concluded, perhaps wistfully reflecting on his youthful exuberance.

By prioritizing auditability over complexity, Buterin aims to ensure that Ethereum remains secure without necessitating a centralized team of experts to maintain it. A laudable goal indeed, albeit one that smacks of utopian idealism! 🌈

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2026-01-19 02:37