Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Vows To ‘Take Back Lost Ground’ In 2026

Vitalik Buterin said on X that Ethereum is done compromising its values for mainstream adoption and will refocus on trustlessness and autonomy.

• Vitalik Buterin stated that Ethereum aims to regain its position on self-sovereignty and trustlessness by 2026.
• Buterin said he wants to decrease dependence on centralized RPC providers to enable data verification independently by users.
• BitMine CEO Tom Lee said Buterin isn't concerned about BitMine's Ethereum stack.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that by 2026 ethereum will “take back lost ground” On self sovereignty and trustlessness, noting that he does not want to see Ethereum compromising on decentralisation in the name of adoption. 
In a post on X, Buterin mentioned prioritising cheaper trust, less validation, better wallet security and recovery, and more privacy for payments while cutting back reliance on RPC providers. This will allow people to verify data themselves and allow Ethereum to be less reliant on centralised infrastructure. 

“Every compromise of values that Ethereum has made up to this point - every moment where you might have been thinking, is it really worth diluting ourselves so much in the name of mainstream adoption - we are making that compromise no longer.” 

Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $3,294.95, flat in the last 24 hours. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around Ethereum remained in ‘normal’ territory, as chatter remained at ‘normal’ levels over the past day.

The remarks coincide with BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) pitching a larger commercial exposure on Ethereum. At the BitMine 2026 Annual Meeting on Friday, Chairman Tom Lee referred to BitMine as the largest holder of Ethereum and mentioned that MAVAN (Made in America Validator Network), its commercial staking subsidiary, is scheduled to go live in early 2026. Lee described MAVAN as a staking platform that would start by staking BitMine’s ETH and then move on to stake other proof-of-stake tokens.

Tom Lee Says Vitalik Won’t Pick Winners

Lee also weighed in on what Buterin makes of BitMine’s foray into Ethereum staking and infrastructure, saying he’s gotten a measured, non-committal response from the Ethereum co-founder. “Vitalik is very diplomatic, because he doesn’t want to bless winners and losers,” said Lee, adding that Buterin is more focused on Ethereum’s long-term growth. “He doesn’t necessarily believe Ethereum is created to become the next monetary system.”

Leave further discussed that even though Buterin avoids endorsing any company, the fact that big banks like JP Morgan, BlackRock and Robinhood have built their tokenization infrastructure on Ethereum “does not make Vitalik unhappy”.

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