Vitalik calls Ethereum a poorly designed tool to solve global crises

The co-founder of Ethereum has never expressed anything with such honesty before. In a message that immediately sparked a reaction from the crypto community, Vitalik Buterin publicly acknowledges the limitations of his own creation. Behind this unexpected mea culpa lies a vision much more strategic than it appears.

Ethereum cannot save the world, and Buterin says so himself

A message posted on X by Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, was enough to set the crypto community on fire. The tone is direct, almost brutal: Ethereum would be an “unsuitable instrument” to counter the two great anxieties of our time, shifting global politics and the risks of unchecked artificial intelligence.

Buterin’s logic is relentless. At a certain level of ambition, “fixing the world” no longer looks like a decentralized technology. It looks like politics. It requires strength, projection, restraint. Yet this is the exact opposite of what Ethereum was designed to do.

It goes even further. “The harsh reality is that Ethereum seems to be lacking in any attempt to concretely improve people’s lives.” When the founder of a multi-hundred billion dollar protocol makes a statement like that, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Such public clarity about his own creation is almost unprecedented in the crypto world.

However, it would be a mistake to read these words as an admission of helplessness. Buterin does not give up, he reframes. It invites the community to adopt another identity: the “sanctuary technology” ecosystem. Open tools, uncensorable, available to everyone. Building blocks that any individual or small group can grasp to improve their own situation without asking anyone’s permission.

DeFi, AI and Anthropic, Vitalik outlines a more targeted protocol

This news doesn’t come out of nowhere. A few days earlier, Vitalik had already set the stage: DeFi remains an area where Ethereum excels, provided it never betrays its foundations, open source, permissionless, resistant to any attempt at censorship. The demanding ideal, which he himself recognizes, is still far from being fully fulfilled.

When it comes to AI, his thinking goes even further. For several months now, he has been proposing Ethereum to serve as an economic layer for autonomous agents, able to secure exchange between algorithms thanks to zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs and a trusted execution environment.

Blockchain not only as a simple financial ledger, but as a bulwark against the concentration of power in the age of artificial intelligence.

This coherent vision naturally led him to look at Anthropic in a different light. When the company stood firm against the Pentagon’s demands and categorically refused to cross its two red lines: “no fully autonomous weapons” and “no mass surveillance,” Buterin publicly praised the stance.

Washington’s reaction was swift. Donald Trump excluded the company from federal circuits, while Pete Hegseth severed all official ties.

The irony of the story: this blacklisting catapulted Anthropic to the status of a symbol of technological resistance.

At the beginning of 2026, his assistant Claude was stuck at number 42 in the US App Store. A few weeks later, at the end of February, it took the top spot, dethroning ChatGPT.

Ethereum no longer claims to solve everything. And that is perhaps his greatest strength. By accepting its limits, Buterin is drawing a more credible and targeted protocol that is not a savior of the world, but an instrument of freedom for those who need it most.

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