Buterin Announces Ethereum's Return to Core Values

In 2026, Ethereum will regain its lost ground in self-governance and trustlessness, according to co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

2026 is the year that we take back lost ground in terms of self-sovereignty and trustlessness.

Some of what this practically means:

Full nodes: thanks to ZK-EVM and BAL, it will once again become easier to locally run a node and verify the Ethereum chain on your own computer.…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 16, 2026

“All compromises regarding values that Ethereum has made until now—every moment when you might think, ‘Is it worth diluting our values for mass adoption?’—we will no longer make these concessions,” he wrote.

To change the trend, Buterin outlined goals for improving private payments, lowering the barrier to running a full node, and enabling the creation of applications that do not rely on centralized servers.

He also emphasized the importance of user control over personal data on the blockchain and the need to enhance the social recovery process that protects funds in case of loss or theft of a seed phrase.

“In many of these areas, we have seen significant regression in Ethereum's development over the past decade. Running nodes has become more complex instead of simpler. Decentralized applications have evolved from static pages into cumbersome giants that send all your data to a dozen servers,” Buterin acknowledged.

Some of the identified issues will be addressed by the launch of the Kohaku toolset and the upcoming Glamsterdam hard fork.

“This will be a long journey. […] But it will transform Ethereum into an ecosystem that deserves not only its current place in the universe but much more,” Buterin stressed.

Recall that in January, he proposed a concept for a self-sustaining blockchain.