Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has taken stock of the network’s progress in 2025, outlining major technical achievements while warning that the ecosystem must push further to meet its founding mission.
In a detailed reflection shared publicly, Vitalik acknowledged that Ethereum delivered meaningful upgrades over the past year. Gas limits increased. Blob counts expanded. Node software became more reliable. zkEVMs broke through long-standing performance barriers. Combined with PeerDAS, these advances marked Ethereum’s largest step yet toward becoming a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of blockchain.
Welcome to 2026! Milady is back.
Ethereum did a lot in 2025: gas limits increased, blob count increased, node software quality improved, zkEVMs blasted through their performance milestones, and with zkEVMs and PeerDAS ethereum made its largest step toward being a fundamentally…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 1, 2026
But Vitalik’s message was not celebratory. It was directional. Ethereum, he argued, should not measure success by chasing the next market narrative or filling blockspace for its own sake. Instead, it must stay focused on its deeper goal: becoming the world computer that underpins a more free and open internet.
Technical Milestones That Defined Ethereum In 2025
From a purely technical perspective, 2025 was one of Ethereum’s most productive years.
The network raised its gas limits, enabling more computation per block and improving baseline throughput. Blob capacity increased as well, strengthening Ethereum’s data availability layer and supporting rollup scalability. These changes directly reduced congestion pressure and improved the experience for users and builders alike.
Node software also saw significant quality improvements. Clients became more stable, more efficient, and easier to operate, lowering the barrier to participation for validators and infrastructure providers. These gains matter because decentralization is not just about protocol design, but about how accessible it is to actually run the system.
Perhaps most striking was progress in zkEVM performance. Zero-knowledge virtual machines surpassed milestones that once seemed years away. Proof generation became faster. Costs dropped. Practical zk-based scaling moved from theory into production reality. Together with PeerDAS, these advances pushed Ethereum closer to a new architectural phase, one where the base layer coordinates security and data, while execution scales far beyond L1 limits.
By any objective measure, Ethereum moved forward in 2025.
The Risk Of Chasing Short-Term Narratives
Despite these wins, Vitalik stressed that Ethereum faces a philosophical challenge.
The network, he warned, must avoid the temptation to define success by “winning the next meta.” Whether that meta is tokenized dollars, political memecoins, or whichever narrative dominates the current cycle, chasing it for its own sake risks diluting Ethereum’s purpose.
Vitalik explicitly rejected the idea that Ethereum’s mission is to arbitrarily convince users to fill blockspace simply to drive fees or make ETH “ultrasound” again. That framing, he argued, confuses means with ends.
Blockspace utilization is not the goal. Price narratives are not the goal. The goal is infrastructure.
Ethereum exists to provide a neutral, censorship-resistant platform that enables applications to run without reliance on centralized intermediaries. If short-term narratives distract from that mission, technical progress alone will not be enough.
Ethereum As The World Computer
At the heart of Vitalik’s reflection is a reaffirmation of Ethereum’s original vision.
Ethereum aims to be the world computer, a general-purpose platform that serves as core infrastructure for a more free and open internet. That means building decentralized applications that do not depend on trust in companies, governments, or third parties.
Vitalik described applications that pass the walkaway test. They keep running even if the original developers disappear. They continue to function even if major infrastructure providers like Cloudflare go offline, or are compromised. Their reliability transcends the rise and fall of corporations, ideologies, and political parties.
Privacy is central to this vision. So is censorship resistance. These properties are not limited to finance. They apply equally to identity systems, governance frameworks, and other forms of civilizational infrastructure that societies increasingly rely on.
Vitalik framed Ethereum as a response to a broader trend. A generation ago, everyday tools like wallets, books, appliances, and cars worked independently. Today, many of these objects are becoming subscription-based services, locking users into permanent dependence on centralized providers.
Ethereum, he argued, is the rebellion against that future.
Usability And Decentralization Must Advance Together
For Ethereum to fulfill its role, Vitalik emphasized two non-negotiable requirements.
First, Ethereum must be usable at scale. A world computer that only works for experts or small user groups fails its purpose. Transactions must be affordable. Applications must be intuitive. Onboarding should not feel like a technical initiation ritual.
Second, Ethereum must remain genuinely decentralized. This applies not just to consensus, but to every layer of the stack. If running a node becomes prohibitively complex or expensive, decentralization erodes, regardless of protocol guarantees.
Crucially, these improvements must happen at two levels.
At the blockchain layer, Ethereum must continue refining its core protocol, execution environment, data availability mechanisms, and client software. Tools for running and interacting with the chain should become simpler, more efficient, and more resilient.
At the application layer, developers must design systems that inherit Ethereum’s guarantees rather than undermining them. Applications should minimize trusted intermediaries, protect user privacy, and degrade gracefully under stress.
Progress is already happening on both fronts. But Vitalik made clear it is not enough yet.
Powerful Tools Are Available, If Ethereum Uses Them
Vitalik closed on a note of cautious optimism.
Ethereum, he said, already has powerful tools at its disposal. Rollups, zkEVMs, data sharding, client diversity, and cryptographic primitives provide a foundation that few systems can match. The challenge is not invention, but application.
These tools must be deployed intentionally, in service of Ethereum’s core mission rather than short-term incentives. That means prioritizing long-term resilience over temporary hype, and infrastructure over speculation.
Ethereum’s progress in 2025 shows what is possible when engineering focus aligns with vision. The next phase, Vitalik suggests, will determine whether Ethereum fully becomes the world computer it set out to be, or merely another blockchain chasing relevance.
The work is underway. But the mission, he reminds the community, is far from complete.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
Follow us on Twitter @themerklehash to stay updated with the latest Crypto, NFT, AI, Cybersecurity, and Metaverse news!
