Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against calls to scrap Ethereum (ETH) and start over, outlining instead a plan to build a "cypherpunk principled non-ugly Ethereum" as a bolt-on extension to the existing network.
The proposal, posted on X on Feb. 20, targets censorship resistance, zero-knowledge proof compatibility, and simplified consensus mechanisms.
Buterin estimated the process could take up to five years - potentially shorter with AI-assisted coding and verification - before the new layer gradually replaces current infrastructure.
What Happened
Buterin's remarks came in direct response to a community member urging him to let Ethereum "die a slow and painful death by fragmentation" and rebuild a cypherpunk chain from scratch.
He rejected that framing, describing his actual goal as more ambitious: growing the new layer alongside the existing system while keeping both tightly integrated and interoperable.
The statement coincided with Ethereum developers officially scheduling FOCIL - Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists - for the upcoming Hegota hard fork. FOCIL randomly selects 16 validator "includers" and one proposer per block slot, enforcing censorship resistance at the protocol level.
Also slotted for Hegota is EIP-8141, an account abstraction upgrade that would enable native support for smart wallets, multisig setups, and quantum-resistant keys - without requiring transaction wrappers or intermediaries.
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Why It Matters
Buterin's proposal is a direct response to Ethereum's fragmentation problem. Layer-2 networks, designed to scale the base layer, have decentralized more slowly than anticipated, while L1 has advanced faster than the rollup-centric roadmap assumed.
The bolt-on approach avoids the costs of a hard fork or full network migration while injecting protocol-level properties that critics argue Ethereum currently lacks.
Whether the Ethereum Foundation can execute on that timetable - while managing Hegota, RISC-V migration plans, and ongoing L2 coordination - remains an open question.
ETH was trading at approximately $1,960 at the time of writing, down about 4% over the past seven days.