Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has revealed the new "Trustless Manifesto," an initiative designed to encourage greater decentralization, self-custody, and verifiability on the Ethereum network.
Co-authored by Ethereum Foundation (EF) researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa, the initiative is founded on the core principle that Ethereum was not initially created to optimize financial efficiency, but rather to empower individuals to coordinate without reliance on trusted intermediaries.
Addressing Hidden Centralization Risks
The team argues that a protocol begins to compromise its fundamental identity the moment a centralized component, such as a hosted node or a controlled relayer, is incorporated. They explained that while these decisions might seem minor initially, they gradually establish a pattern that erodes permissionless access, ultimately sacrificing efficiency and a refined user interface.
"The manifesto is a statement of those values: credible neutrality, self-custody, verifiability, and resistance to ‘convenient’ centralization," wrote the team via X.
The document defines a system as genuinely trustless only when any honest user can participate, verify, and engage freely without requiring explicit permission or facing the threat of interference. This condition hinges on the verifiability of every action through public data and the assurance that no single operator becomes indispensable to the system's operational integrity.
The EF also cautions that simplicity achieved through dependency is not a marker of advancement but rather a decline in independence. "When complexity tempts us to centralize, we must remember: every line of convenience code can become a choke point," the authors stated.
The manifesto points to the increasing adoption of centralized infrastructure, such as major cloud providers hosting blockchain nodes, as evidence of this gradual shift towards dependence. The recent outage experienced by Amazon Web Services underscored this risk. Coinbase's Base chain experienced a significant reduction in transaction capacity, dropping by approximately 25%, when its AWS-hosted sequencer went offline. In contrast, Arbitrum and Optimism continued to operate without interruption because they utilize multiple cloud providers.
Prioritizing Trustlessness Over Transaction Volume
This message arrives at a juncture when some Layer 2 networks have faced criticism for prioritizing rapid scalability at the expense of complete decentralization. Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base have drawn scrutiny due to risks such as single sequencer control and delayed decentralization plans, stemming from limited community involvement in governance processes.
The authors advocate for a new methodology to evaluate the long-term health of a blockchain project. This assessment should focus on the extent to which the project reduces reliance on trust with each transaction, rather than solely measuring the volume of transactions processed.
Developers wishing to endorse the pledge are instructed to connect their wallet, review the manifesto, select "Sign the Trustless Manifesto Pledge," and then confirm the transaction. The initiative has already garnered support from several prominent figures within the Ethereum community, including EF member Tom Teman and the pseudonymous crypto researcher hitas.base.eth.