Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin Will Shift His Focus in 2025 from Scaling to Long-term Protocol Resilience and Privacy

In a newly published update, Buterin said he plans to step back from short-term execution and leave L1 gas scaling and near-term upgrades to Ethereum Foundation developers.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin will be shifting his focus in 2025 to increase the long-term protocol resilience and privacy, stepping back from scaling to leave L1 gas scaling and near-term upgrades to Ethereum Foundation developers.

Buterin will be concentrating instead on building Ethereum’s long-term robustness, including single-slot finality, statelessness, and virtual machine longevity.

Vitalik Shifts to Ethereum’s Long-Term Resilience Agenda

In a newly published update, Buterin outlined his priorities for Ethereum’s future, which include protocol hardening and censorship resistance as key concerns.

He also highlighted a pivot toward “full-stack security, open source, and privacy,” extending from the protocol level into wallet usability, application design, and governance tooling.

This shift is noteworthy as Ethereum prepares to increase its base gas limits, a milestone Buterin will now be observing from a distance. He noted that short-term scaling execution is in the hands of Ethereum Foundation contributors such as @gakonst, @ansgar.eth, and @dankrad, who are spearheading gas limit improvements and performance upgrades.

Decentralized Acceleration (d/acc) and Privacy Tech Take Center Stage

Furthermore, Buterin expressed his interest in the broader decentralized acceleration (d/acc) movement, which encompasses cryptography, privacy infrastructure, bio-defense systems, and low-trust tooling.

His emphasis on encrypted messaging, decentralized social layers, and prediction markets portrays a vision where communication systems play a foundational role in Ethereum’s resilience. These tools, he argues, are essential for long-term decentralized coordination even beyond the Ethereum ecosystem itself.

Vitalik’s Focus Aligns With Vision for Ethical Infrastructure

Buterin made it clear that his current interest lies in abstract system design and ethical infrastructure, not execution-level detail.

He stated, “I’m not personally interested in e.g., arguing over whether the gas limit should be 16m or 15m, but I am interested in e.g., the long-term system-level trade-offs between e.g., PoS and plasma.”

By stepping back, Buterin is delegating immediate scaling milestones to trusted Ethereum developers while shaping Ethereum’s future through architecture and principles. His post suggests that Ethereum’s survival and success will depend not only on transaction throughput but on how well the network preserves privacy, integrity, and neutrality at every layer.

Community Reacts to Buterin’s Priorities

Buterin’s update has already elicited responses from prominent figures in the Ethereum community. Ethereum core contributor Ben Edger, known for his work on L1 performance optimization, expressed his respect for Buterin’s decision to prioritize statelessness and virtual machine stability.

Many in the community also highlighted the importance of Buterin’s focus on UX-layer privacy and application decentralization for mainstream adoption.

As Ethereum matures, Buterin’s pivot signals a broader philosophical shift — from speed to resilience, from scaling gas to securing trust. Only time will tell what new horizons await as the co-founder delves deeper into the technical and philosophical domains of Web3.