Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin Rings the Alarm on the Network's Increasing Complexity

Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin is once again ringing the alarm on the network's increasing complexity.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is once again sounding the alarm on the network’s increasing complexity. In his latest reflections, Buterin has laid out a fresh proposal urging the Ethereum community to make node operation easier for everyday users.

Most users today connect to Ethereum through external RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services provided by large firms. While convenient, this approach could undermine the core principles of decentralization and privacy.

According to Buterin, these centralized services could be pressured to block users, censor certain transactions, or become targets of surveillance. He also notes that relying on third-party access points makes it harder for ordinary people to run their own local nodes—a challenge Buterin now seeks to solve through a decisive decentralization plan.

Running a local node gives users direct, private access to Ethereum. They can interact with decentralized applications and verify blockchain activity independently. But as Ethereum’s size balloons, running a full node has become too demanding for the average user, both in terms of storage and technical upkeep.

Buterin believes Ethereum’s scaling roadmap has leaned too heavily on complex cryptographic solutions like ZK-EVMs (zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines), which allow for fast transaction validation. These technologies are useful, but they don’t solve the deeper issue: that Ethereum needs to be more accessible.

In a recent proposal, Buterin argues that full independence shouldn’t require expert knowledge or advanced hardware. He believes Ethereum should prioritize lightness, modularity, and localizability—a direction he feels is more compatible with a decentralized future.

To reverse the trend, Buterin recommends fast-tracking EIP-4444—a proposal that would limit how much historical data nodes are required to store. If nodes only needed to keep about a month’s worth of history, it would significantly reduce their size, making it far easier for regular users to participate.

To ensure old data isn’t lost, Buterin suggests distributing storage across the network using erasure coding, where every node holds a small, recoverable piece of the puzzle.

He also proposes rebalancing Ethereum’s gas fee system. At the moment, it’s cheap to add new data to the chain—like launching new tokens or apps—but more expensive to run computations. Flipping this balance could help control Ethereum’s data growth, easing pressure on those running nodes.

Buterin envisions a scenario where someone using Ethereum primarily for DeFi could configure their node to focus just on the relevant contracts and tokens. Users could even automate these choices with a smart contract. This way, each person’s node would be lighter, faster, and tailored to their activity, further reducing the need to rely on external services.

In other news, ETH price has dropped more than 4% over the past 24 hours as whales took profits.

On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain reported that one address dumped 4,718 ETH for around $11.53 million, scoring a profit of $3.18 million. Another wallet sold 2,594 ETH for about $6.23 million, realizing a gain of $1.31 million.

These large-scale profit-taking moves come amid ongoing changes and new developments in the Ethereum network, which may be prompting some traders to reduce their exposure.

This isn’t the first time this month that Buterin has pushed for simplicity. Just weeks ago, he urged simplifying Ethereum’s Layer 1 design, noting that the network remains overly complex for many users.

His comments came just ahead of the Ethereum Foundation’s new Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, which was unveiled on May 14th.

The effort is focused on tightening Ethereum’s defenses as the network aims to become a key platform for global finance. The goal is to ensure Ethereum can securely support trillions of dollars in economic activity without compromising on decentralization or user control.