Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that constant feature additions without removing legacy components are inflating Ethereum’s protocol complexity.
In a Sunday post, Buterin said long-term trustlessness and self-sovereignty depend more on simplicity than raw decentralisation metrics.
“Even if a protocol is super decentralised with hundreds of thousands of nodes, if it is an unwieldy mess of code and complex cryptography, ultimately that protocol fails,”
Vitalik Buterin said.
Buterin argued that excessive complexity forces users to rely on experts to interpret the protocol, weakening trustlessness.
He said growing bloat risks failing the “walkaway test,” where a network should function even if its original developers disappear.
Buterin warned that self-sovereignty is eroded when even advanced users can no longer understand or audit the system.
He said backward compatibility often dominates upgrade decisions, creating a bias toward adding features rather than removing them.
To address this, Buterin called for a formal “garbage collection” or simplification function in Ethereum’s development process.
He said this approach should focus on reducing code size, limiting complex cryptographic dependencies, and increasing fixed invariants.
Buterin cited Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake as a successful example of large-scale protocol cleanup.
He also pointed to recent gas cost reforms aimed at aligning rules more closely with actual resource usage.
Buterin suggested rarely used features could be moved out of the core protocol and into smart contracts to ease client development.
In contrast, Solana Labs chief executive Anatoly Yakovenko said blockchains must evolve continuously to remain relevant.
Yakovenko argued that constant iteration is essential for Solana’s survival, even without centralised leadership.
Buterin maintained that Ethereum should ultimately reach a stable state where it can operate predictably for decades without ongoing intervention.
At the time of reporting, Ethereum price was $3,214.29.