Key Highlights
- Buterin advocates a stable, predictable Ethereum L1, reducing major upgrades to avoid risks as the network secures hundreds of billions in value.
- Innovation will shift to layer-2 rollups, wallets, and applications, allowing improvements without altering the core protocol.
- Buterin also warned that elliptic curve cryptography is threatened by quantum computers, potentially as early as 2028.
Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin has said that the world’s second-largest blockchain should gradually stop changing its base layer—a dramatic shift from the network’s long-standing culture of rapid experimentation.
Speaking at the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires, Buterin told an audience of more than 500 people that Ethereum’s base layer, also called layer 1 (L1), should ossify—a term used in blockchain communities to describe intentionally limiting further core upgrades.
“More and more ossification over time is good for Ethereum,” he said. “We have a much lower rate of surprises now.”
The idea drew murmurs from the crowd, which is used to Ethereum’s reputation for being a flexible and ever-evolving protocol.
Why Buterin wants Ethereum to ‘Ossify’
For years, Ethereum’s ability to adapt quickly was seen as its core strength. Developers could innovate freely, expecting the protocol to adjust and improve over time.
However, Buterin argued that Ethereum’s size and importance have changed the equation. With hundreds of billions of dollars now secured on the network, stability may matter more than endless upgrades.
A more rigid—and therefore predictable—base layer, he argued, reduces the risk of introducing bugs or vulnerabilities. A boring blockchain, in this case, might actually be a safer one.
Ossification doesn’t mean stopping all innovation
Buterin clarified that Ethereum does not have to freeze completely. Instead, different parts of the network can “ossify” at different speeds.
He explained that Ethereum’s consensus layer (the system that ensures all nodes agree on the same version of the blockchain) could become stable and unchanging, while the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)—the software environment that runs smart contracts—remains open to improvements.
“It’s good to maintain some flexibility,” he said. His vision is to shift innovation away from layer 1 and toward the surrounding ecosystem:
1. Layer 2 (L2) rollups
These are networks built on top of Ethereum that handle most transactions before settling the final results on the main chain. They already process the majority of Ethereum’s activity.
2. Wallets and user tools
Improvements in usability, security, and privacy can happen at the user interface level, without touching the core protocol.
3. Applications
Developers can continue to build new features on top of Ethereum without requiring changes to Ethereum itself.
“It’s healthy to move attention out of L1 and into the surrounding ecosystem,” Buterin said, emphasizing that innovation should continue, just not at the base of the protocol where risks are highest.
The cost of growing up: A maturing and imitative ecosystem
Buterin also reflected on how Ethereum’s culture has shifted. In its early days, the crypto space was driven by experimentation and ambitious ideas. Over time, however, a wave of memecoins, speculative trading, and copycat projects has dulled some of that creativity.
“There is too much of the space that has gone in the direction of ‘if you want to succeed, be a fast follower and copy what’s already working,’” he said. “It harms the imagination of the space.”
At the same time, the entrance of institutional players has pushed the ecosystem toward more discipline and predictability—a natural outcome of growth, but one that comes with tradeoffs.
A looming threat: Quantum computing
Buterin ended with a serious warning about the long-term security of Ethereum and other blockchains. Ethereum relies on elliptic curve cryptography, a mathematical system used to secure wallets and verify transactions. But future quantum computers could break this cryptography far faster than traditional machines.
“Elliptic curves are going to die,” Buterin said, citing predictions that quantum computers strong enough to threaten Ethereum may arrive before the next U.S. presidential election in 2028. If that timeline holds, the ecosystem has around four years to migrate to quantum-resistant cryptographic systems.
Importantly, Buterin emphasized that—under an ossified model—such major changes would be handled at the edges of the network (such as through wallets and user tools), rather than by altering Ethereum’s core protocol.
A new phase for Ethereum
Buterin’s message marks a turning point for Ethereum’s philosophy. After nearly a decade of rapid upgrades from the Merge to the Surge roadmap, he is now calling for the base layer to become stable, predictable, and almost unchangeable.
For a network responsible for securing enormous value, he argues, this kind of maturity is not only inevitable but essential.
The future of Ethereum, in his view, belongs to the layers built on top of it — while the foundation finally settles into place.
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