Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has issued a pivotal call for the network to evolve beyond mere scaling achievements, emphasizing the critical need to pass the "walkaway test." He argues that after a year of successful performance boosts, Ethereum's future must hinge on resisting censorship and centralization, ensuring it doesn't devolve into just another Web2-style subscription service.
Prioritizing Decentralization Over Scale
Buterin stresses that while Ethereum has seen significant performance enhancements, such as increased blob counts and the maturation of zkEVMs, the community must not become complacent. He urged developers to shift focus from "winning the next meta" or artificially filling blockspace. Instead, the network must re-embrace its original ambitious goal: to serve as the world computer for a freer and more open internet. This vision necessitates improvements at both the "blockchain layer" and the "application layer" to achieve true usability at scale alongside robust decentralization.
The "Walkaway Test" for True dApps
Central to Buterin's vision is the concept of the "walkaway test," a rigorous standard designed to differentiate genuine crypto infrastructure from traditional Web2 services. He posits that true decentralized applications (dApps) are those that "keep running even if the original developers disappear." This stands in stark contrast to conventional "subscription services" that foster permanent user dependence on a centralized entity. Buterin highlighted the required resilience, stating that dApps must be so robust that a user wouldn't "even notice if Cloudflare goes down - or even if all of Cloudflare gets hacked by North Korea," underscoring the imperative for applications to function autonomously and without single points of failure.
