Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin rang in 2026 by switching his X profile image back to a Milady-style avatar and pairing it with a manifesto-like post that re-centers Ethereum’s identity around a single, old-school ambition: becoming “the world computer” for an open internet.
Ethereum Must Deliver The World ComputerBut the post’s center of gravity wasn’t a victory lap. It was a warning that the network is still falling short of its own stated goals and that chasing whatever narrative is currently printing attention is not the point.
From there, he offered a description of what “world computer” should mean in practice: decentralized applications that can’t be quietly altered or shut off, and that remain usable even when the companies and infrastructure most users take for granted fail.
Buterin extended that same set of expectations beyond finance, explicitly name-checking identity, governance, and “whatever other civilizational infrastructure people want to build,” and he emphasized privacy as a core property rather than a nice-to-have.
A notable thread in the post is that Buterin refuses to treat usability-at-scale and decentralization as a trade-off Ethereum can punt on. “To achieve this, it needs to be (i) usable, and usable at scale, and (ii) actually decentralized,” he wrote, arguing those requirements apply both to the base layer—“including the software we use to run and talk to the blockchain” and to the application layer.
That framing implicitly puts pressure on multiple constituencies at once: core protocol work, client diversity and quality, infrastructure that doesn’t centralize around a few providers, and dapp architectures that can survive developer abandonment while still meeting user expectations.
Buterin closed on a note of resolve rather than specifics, saying Ethereum has “powerful tools” but needs to apply them more aggressively. “All of these pieces must be improved — they are already being improved, but they must be improved more,” he wrote. “Fortunately, we have powerful tools on our side — but we need to apply them, and we will.”
At press time, ETH traded at $3,030.
