Vitalik Buterin Reiterates: Ethereum was not created for "efficiency," but for "empowering people with freedom"

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a lengthy article emphasizing that the core goal of Ethereum’s inception was not to improve efficiency or convenience, but to pursue freedom and resilience, creating a decentralized and sovereign “world computer” to safeguard the autonomy and security of users worldwide.
(Background summary: Vitalik’s major announcement: the blockchain “impossible triangle” has been broken, PeerDAS and ZK-EVM solve Ethereum’s throughput and security issues)
(Additional context: Vitalik’s 2026 New Year declaration: Ethereum exists not for storytelling, but to become the world computer of a free internet)

Today (5th), Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin posted a long article on the decentralized social platform Farcaster, re-quoting and elaborating on a classic declaration from the “Trustless Manifesto”: “Ethereum was not created to make finance more efficient or applications more convenient. It was created to give people freedom.” He believes that this statement is even more worth deep reflection in today’s environment.

In the article, Vitalik points out that “efficiency” and “convenience” often refer to further optimization on already decent foundations—for example, reducing transaction latency from 473 milliseconds to 368 milliseconds, or increasing annual yields from 4.5% to 5.3%. While these improvements are valuable, he emphasizes that Ethereum can never win in this “average-case optimization” game against large Silicon Valley tech giants. Therefore, Ethereum must play a completely different game — that is, “resilience.”

He further explains that the core of resilience is not about pursuing higher returns, but about avoiding catastrophic losses of “-100%” as much as possible. Even if users are banned from platforms due to political reasons, developers go bankrupt or disappear, cloud service providers like Cloudflare go down, or even large-scale cyber wars erupt, users can still maintain basic network access and functionality. Resilience means that anyone in any corner of the world can participate in the internet as an “equal citizen,” without being arbitrarily deprived by external forces.

Vitalik calls this kind of resilience “sovereignty”—similar to the commonly discussed “digital sovereignty” or “food sovereignty”—which actively reduces vulnerability to external dependencies. Only on this foundation of sovereignty can people truly achieve equal interdependence, rather than becoming vassals of distant corporate giants.

He also criticizes that the DNA of traditional Web2 consumer technology is not suitable for pursuing resilience; while traditional finance invests heavily in certain risk mitigation, resilience remains partial. In contrast, decentralized, permissionless, and resilient blockchain space is extremely scarce, and this is the core value Ethereum must prioritize:

“First become a decentralized, permissionless, and resilient blockchain space, then pursue making it richer.”

Vitalik believes that in today’s increasingly turbulent world, more and more people will need the value brought by resilience and sovereignty. This also serves as a reminder to the community that Ethereum’s ultimate mission is not to chase short-term efficiency, but to provide users with genuine freedom and security.

Below is Vitalik’s original text translation for reference:

“Ethereum was not born to make finance more efficient or applications more convenient; its purpose is to give people freedom.”

This sentence comes from the “Trustless Manifesto” (trustlessness.eth.limo), which was significant and controversial at the time. Now, it’s worth revisiting this statement and gaining a deeper understanding of its true meaning.

The words “efficiency” and “convenience” often carry a connotation: further optimization of “average” conditions when things are already pretty good.

Efficiency means top engineers worldwide pouring effort into reducing latency from 473 milliseconds to 368 milliseconds, or increasing annual returns from 4.5% to 5.3%.

Convenience means turning operations that once required three clicks into just one, or shortening registration time from 1 minute to 20 seconds.

These things are not wrong in themselves, and are even valuable. But the premise is that we must clearly recognize: in this game, we can never outperform the large Silicon Valley players.

Therefore, the fundamental game Ethereum participates in and must focus on is inherently different. What is this game? The answer is: resilience.

The resilience game is not about the difference between 4.5% APY and 5.3% APY, but about minimizing the chance of “annualized returns turning into -100%.”

The resilience game means that even if you become unpopular due to political stance, get banned by platforms; even if your application development team goes bankrupt or disappears; even if Cloudflare crashes; even if a cyber war erupts at the network level—your 2,000 milliseconds latency remains 2,000 milliseconds.

The resilience game means that anyone anywhere in the world can access this network and participate as an “equal citizen.”

Resilience is sovereignty.

But here, sovereignty does not refer to the kind of sovereignty that lobbies to become a UN member state or shakes hands in Davos two weeks later; it refers to the kind of sovereignty when people talk about “digital sovereignty” or “food sovereignty”—which is about actively reducing vulnerability to external dependencies, avoiding dependencies that can be arbitrarily taken away by others.

It is in this sense that the “world computer” can have sovereignty, and further, its users can also have sovereignty.

Only with this foundation can mutual dependence be built on equal terms, rather than becoming vassals under distant corporate hegemony.

This is the game Ethereum is best suited for, and also the one with the greatest chance of winning. In an increasingly unstable world, this value will be what many truly need.

The core DNA of Web2 consumer technology is not suitable for pursuing resilience.

And while the core DNA of the financial system has indeed invested heavily in resilience in some aspects, that resilience is often very fragmented—only able to address certain risks, but unable to cover everything.

Blockchain space itself is not scarce.

What is truly scarce is a decentralized, permissionless, and resilient blockchain space.

Ethereum must first become a decentralized, permissionless, and highly resilient blockchain space—and then make it rich and abundant.