vitalik

Ethereum developers decided during a virtual meeting on Thursday not to include "frame transactions" as a key proposal for the Hegota upgrade expected to be launched in the second half of 2026, despite Vitalik Buterin's public support. Client developers believe the proposal is too complex and are concerned it may delay the upgrade process.Frame transactions aim to introduce native account abstraction and quantum resistance to Ethereum, providing users with a login experience similar to traditional networks and supporting fee-less transactions. Supporters warn that if it is not prioritized, native account abstraction may be difficult to achieve in the long term. The first confirmed key proposal for Hegota is FOCIL, which aims to enhance the network's censorship resistance. Frame transactions were ultimately marked as "consider for inclusion" and will continue to be reviewed as a non-key proposal in subsequent meetings.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin praised Alibaba's Qwen 35B parameter model's problem-solving ability in a social media post. This artificial intelligence model successfully solved a complex mathematical problem, consuming about 15,000 tokens during the reasoning process, and completed the calculation in just 3 minutes on a local device.Vitalik Buterin pointed out that the problem demonstrated the technique of embedding modular arithmetic into continuous function expressions using trigonometric functions, showcasing the Qwen model's capabilities in mathematical reasoning.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article introducing a new Ethereum fast confirmation rule mechanism. This mechanism allows users to receive a hard guarantee that Ethereum transactions will not be reverted (Non-revert) after just one Slot (12 seconds). Vitalik pointed out that the security of this rule is based on two premises: first, that the vast majority of validators are honest nodes, and second, that network latency is below approximately 3 seconds. Although its security is slightly lower than economic finality, it already possesses strong reliability for many application scenarios.

Vitalik posted on the X platform, stating that we should maintain an open attitude towards the current separation of the Ethereum beacon chain and execution clients, believing that the complexity of running two daemons and having them communicate with each other is significantly higher than running a single daemon.Vitalik pointed out that Ethereum's goal is to allow users to use the network in a self-hosted manner and have a good user experience, which in many cases means needing to run their own nodes. However, the current way of running nodes adds unnecessary complexity. He suggested that in the short term, a more standardized foundational packaging solution could allow users to install Docker images of different clients and achieve more convenient communication. At the same time, as the LeanEthereum consensus scheme matures, the overall architectural design should also be reconsidered in the future.

Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform to interpret the Ethereum Foundation's new mission statement, "EF Mandate." He expressed that he will double down on Ethereum and is full of expectations for its future development.Vitalik Buterin pointed out that Ethereum has a unique role in the global digital ecosystem, with its mission being to become a "sanctuary technology" to maintain technological self-sovereignty and promote collaboration in a non-coercive, non-dominant environment. The core goal of Ethereum is to ensure that no individual, organization, or ideology can achieve absolute control in cyberspace and to provide users with an "exit mechanism." The Ethereum Foundation, as the "guardian" of the network, will continue to focus on advancing the CROPS principles, which include censorship resistance and anti-capture, open source, privacy, and security. It will prioritize decentralization, verifiability, network activity, and security at the protocol level while promoting capability upgrades such as account abstraction to reduce reliance on intermediaries.At the application layer, the Ethereum Foundation will strive to create a "zero option" user experience that balances security, privacy, and user autonomy, complementing broader ecosystem projects to jointly promote the development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform, proposing a tool to enhance personal security and provide low-cost protection for civil liberties, which is that everyone should have an easy and "deniable" way to report emergencies.For example, by pre-setting a few secret words, when a watch, phone, or home device hears these words, it automatically dials 911 silently and transmits the location to the police in real-time. This is particularly effective for cryptocurrency holders who are concerned about being kidnapped or robbed.Vitalik stated that if the environment can ensure that there is at least a 20% chance the police will arrive immediately when a robbery occurs, and the robber cannot detect whether the alarm has been triggered, then such crimes will become unfeasible due to the high risk involved. Since this feature requires the victim to take action for it to operate, the risk of it being misused by the government for mass surveillance is relatively low.

Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform that he received a large amount of tokens such as SHIB, donating half to CryptoRelief and the other half to FLI at the peak of the price. He originally thought FLI could cash out a maximum of $10 million to $25 million, but FLI ultimately cashed out about $500 million.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform that the fundamental value of Ethereum is not its smart contracts or payment functions, but rather as a publicly writable and readable "bulletin board" that provides data availability support for cryptographic protocols.He pointed out that many cryptographic protocols—including secure online voting, software version control, certificate revocation, and more—require a public data space, and the upgraded PeerDAS mechanism in Ethereum can increase data availability by 2.3 times, with the potential for further increases of 10 to 100 times.Buterin also emphasized the role of ETH in payments, resistance to Sybil attacks, and security deposits for smart contracts, making it a core component of a decentralized, private, and secure open-source tech stack.He believes that Ethereum can be seen as a "global shared memory," and improvements in low fees and scalability will further drive its application in various scenarios, including DeFi and more potential use cases.

Vitalik Buterin recently provided feedback on the summary report of the GG23 "Predictive Funding Challenge" at the Gitcoin governance forum. He suggested that the project lead @devanshmehta continue to refine this mechanism, but it is essential to ensure that the design details and funding sources can adapt to the needs of the "tumultuous times" described.Vitalik pointed out that Deep Funding currently has two significant advantages: first, it aligns with the principle of "elite management," avoiding foolish excessive egalitarianism; second, it benefits from AI in a way that is compatible with human subjectivity.However, he believes that the current framework still carries a flavor of the "stable era," attempting to construct a large social tool crystallizing principles of justice and hoping for societal consensus to inject funding. He emphasized that, in the current tumultuous global situation, funding mechanisms need to consider how to operate effectively in an environment lacking such consensus.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform that the Ethereum Foundation is using DVT-lite technology to stake 72,000 ETH.Vitalik expressed hope that this project would simplify institutional distributed staking into a minimal and one-click operation—users choose the computer to run the node, create a configuration file containing the same key, and then everything is completed automatically. Vitalik emphasized that the idea of viewing infrastructure operation as complex and needing to be handled by "professionals" is anti-decentralization and must be directly broken.The ideal model should be a Docker container or Nix image, where each node can input the same key with one click or command line, nodes automatically discover each other, complete network configuration, generate distributed keys, and start staking. Vitalik mentioned that he also plans to adopt this method soon and hopes that more institutions holding ETH can stake in this way.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that, in the context of the increasing prevalence of AI agents, cryptographic privacy technologies are crucial for protecting users' API call patterns and behavioral data. He pointed out that even with local AI agents, if external services can see all search or API call records, they can still infer the activities users are engaged in.Vitalik believes that a preliminary solution is to forward requests through a mixnet to hide the source of access, but service providers may demand the introduction of anti-abuse mechanisms and pay-per-call models due to facing DoS attacks. In reality, these payment methods often rely on credit cards or stablecoin systems that lack privacy protection. Therefore, he emphasized the need for cryptographic payment solutions with privacy attributes.He further noted that privacy protection needs to be considered from a full stack perspective, with the local AI agent layer being particularly critical. Vitalik likened it to the issue of healthy lifespan: if there are multiple damaging factors, addressing them one by one can yield cumulative benefits; similarly, measures to reduce the risk of data leakage can produce similar compound effects.

Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform, stating that in the discussion of Ethereum's consensus mechanism, there is a proposal to replace the current finality component Casper FFG with a new one called Minimmit. He believes that Casper FFG employs a two-round finality mechanism (validators need to sign twice to complete "proof" and "final confirmation"), while Minimmit requires only a single round of signatures to achieve finality.As a trade-off, the fault tolerance threshold of Minimmit will be reduced from 33% in Casper FFG to about 17%. Although the fault tolerance ratio decreases, Minimmit can more likely allow the network to enter a state of "multi-chain competition rather than erroneous final confirmation" in various attack or client vulnerability scenarios, which is easier to recover through community coordination. He believes that compared to erroneous blocks being finalized, the absence of finality for a short period is safer and more recoverable, thus suggesting that Minimmit may be superior in overall security trade-offs.

Culper Research stated on X that they are shorting ETH and related stocks (such as BMNR), citing: "The tokenomics of ETH has been damaged after the Fusaka upgrade in December 2025. Vitalik himself knows this and is selling ETH, while one of ETH's most steadfast bulls, Tom Lee, continues to double down, essentially pouring good money into a bad project."In response to the institution's statement, Vitalik's father, Dmitry Buterin (dima.eth), replied: "Once you see the phrase 'Vitalik knows this and is selling,' you don't need to read further. They are attention-seeking clowns, not researchers."

Ethereum founder Vitalik stated, "I think it's a good thing for the Ethereum community to have a bolder and more open mindset, especially regarding the application layer and how we view our place in the world. We should not compromise on core attributes: censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security (CROPS). Especially at the application layer and in the interface between Ethereum and the outside world, we should be more willing to thoroughly rethink various concepts and step out of our comfort zone.Last year, we began to prioritize privacy and give it equal importance to other types of security. This means that the Ethereum application stack will undergo fundamental changes, as the entire stack has not been built around privacy so far. Great, let's build a completely different Ethereum application stack. An example this year is rethinking the role of L2 from scratch and determining which types of L2 can truly create the greatest synergy and benefits with Ethereum. This also includes cultural factors.For me and others, this is an important part of the "milady" concept. Write down your inherent notions of "decency," crumple them up, and burn them. This mental cleansing will lead to an intellectual cleansing, thereby sparking greater creativity and broadening perspectives. For a long time, our algorithm on Ethereum has been: we have an existing ecosystem, what should we do next to make it better? Now, our algorithm should be: we have a fantastic L1 layer, and it will become even better; we have more and more tools, including those developed inside and outside the ecosystem; based on what we currently know, what is the most valuable?If you were to write the section on applications from the 2014 Ethereum white paper, starting from first principles in areas like DeFi, decentralized social, and identity verification, what would you write? At the very least, please exclude all path dependency issues, assuming the Ethereum chain is currently unused, and you are the first to propose or build the first applications, and see what you would ultimately write. Even if you are currently building existing applications, please do this. This is the secret to revitalizing Ethereum."

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform: "It is clear that the next generation of wallets will heavily utilize artificial intelligence. I would not trust local lightweight clients (LLM) to handle transactions or funds worth millions of dollars. In high-value situations, the best workflow is 'AI proposes a solution, local lightweight client simulates execution, user reviews the operation and simulation results, and manually confirms.' All of this needs to be done with caution and a strong emphasis on security, but it could bring great convenience; completely removing the user interface of DApps could address a large number of attack vectors (including theft and privacy breaches)."

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated that it is clear that the next generation of wallets will heavily utilize artificial intelligence. I would not trust local lightweight clients (LLM) to handle transactions or funds worth millions of dollars. In high-value situations, the best workflow is "AI proposes solutions, local lightweight clients simulate execution, users review the operations and simulated results, and manually confirm."All of this needs to be done with caution and a strong emphasis on security, but it could bring great convenience; completely removing the user interface of decentralized applications (DApps) could address a large number of attack vectors (including theft and privacy breaches).