Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently publicly stated that Ethereum needs to make a strategic shift around 2026. Over the past decade, while Ethereum has pursued better usability and mainstream applications, some core decentralization features have been gradually eroded. Buterin candidly pointed out that this direction needs to be corrected.

The main issues currently present are quite specific. First, the difficulty of running nodes is increasing, making it hard for ordinary users to participate in network validation. Second, data leaks in DApps are becoming more serious, putting users' privacy and sovereignty at risk. The development trajectory of wallets is also concerning—evolving from initial local RPC to reliance on third-party infrastructure, which introduces centralization risks. Additionally, the trend toward centralization in block construction is becoming more evident, with a few builders controlling transaction inclusion, directly affecting the network's resistance to censorship and transaction fairness.

Regarding future development directions, Buterin emphasizes that by 2026, Ethereum should no longer ask "how to be more like Web2," but firmly answer "how to become more thoroughly Web3." This means that from the protocol layer to the tooling layer and the application layer, decentralization efforts need to be coordinated. This includes making node operation more lightweight, promoting decentralized staking mechanisms, and re-examining solutions for data availability.