Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is urging developers to simplify the network’s increasingly complex codebase to preserve its core values of decentralization, trustlessness, and self-sovereignty.
Quick Summary – TLDR:
- Buterin warns Ethereum’s growing complexity could threaten its decentralization and transparency.
- He proposes a “garbage collection” initiative to clean up outdated and unnecessary code.
- Three simplification metrics: fewer lines of code, minimal cryptographic dependencies, and stronger protocol invariants.
- Future steps may include switching to a simpler virtual machine and isolating legacy features.
What Happened?
Vitalik Buterin raised concerns about protocol bloat in Ethereum, warning that the blockchain’s increasing complexity risks compromising its decentralization and usability. He’s calling for a new phase of development focused not on adding features, but removing outdated or unnecessary ones to streamline the protocol and make it easier for anyone to verify and maintain.
An important, and perenially underrated, aspect of “trustlessness”, “passing the walkaway test” and “self-sovereignty” is protocol simplicity.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 18, 2026
Even if a protocol is super decentralized with hundreds of thousands of nodes, and it has 49% byzantine fault tolerance, and nodes fully… pic.twitter.com/kvzkg11M3c
Ethereum’s Complexity Problem
Ethereum has come a long way since its inception, growing into a powerful decentralized network. However, Buterin believes this growth has introduced excessive complexity that now threatens the platform’s foundational ideals.
He compared Ethereum’s development journey to an “adolescence stage” filled with experimentation. While this phase led to valuable innovations, it also left behind a tangled web of features that make the system harder to understand and trust.
Key risks of this complexity include:
- Loss of trust: Users are increasingly reliant on experts to explain protocol behavior.
- Weakened decentralization: Complex systems reduce accessibility for average participants.
- Failure of the “walkaway test”: If developers vanished, it would be nearly impossible to rebuild or maintain clients using the current bloated codebase.
Buterin emphasized:
The Push for “Garbage Collection”
To address these risks, Buterin proposes a systematic cleanup of Ethereum’s protocol, likening it to a “garbage collection” process.
Under this plan, outdated and little-used features would be removed or moved into smart contracts, allowing the core protocol to stay leaner and more manageable. He believes this shift will make client behavior more predictable, security easier to audit, and long-term maintenance more feasible.
Three Metrics for Simpler Ethereum
To guide this cleanup, Buterin outlined three metrics:
- Minimize total lines of code – A simpler codebase is easier to maintain and understand.
- Avoid reliance on complex cryptography – Techniques like lattices or isogenies should be minimized unless absolutely necessary.
- Introduce protocol invariants – Built-in rules that make the protocol’s behavior more consistent and predictable.
He praised past simplification milestones like the move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, and Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) such as:
- EIP-6780 – which restricted the selfdestruct opcode.
- EIP-7825 – which introduced caps on per-transaction gas usage.
Looking Ahead: A More Sustainable Ethereum
Buterin envisions an Ethereum that is cleaner, more robust, and easier to sustain, even in the absence of its original developers. He suggested that future changes could include:
- Replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with a simpler system like RISC-V.
- Running legacy Ethereum versions in containers, so new clients only deal with the streamlined version.
He likened this trajectory to how SpaceX rockets evolved by getting more efficient with each iteration.
SQ Magazine Takeaway
I think Vitalik is right to hit the brakes a bit. Ethereum has been in overdrive for years, adding features left and right. But now it’s time to clean house. The whole point of a decentralized system is that anyone can join in and verify things without needing to be a blockchain wizard. If the code gets too dense, we lose that. I like the direction he’s pointing that is simplicity, transparency, and long-term sustainability. Let’s hope the dev community listens.
