What To Know:
- Vitalik Buterin has called out the growing number of new Ethereum Virtual Machine based blockchains.
- He argued many new EVM chains are built by copying existing architectures and attaching an optimistic bridge to Ethereum with a one week delay.
- Labeling a project as closely tied to Ethereum, while relying only on a superficial bridge, creates confusion and weakens trust across the ecosystem.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called out the growing number of new Ethereum Virtual Machine based blockchains. He warned that much of the current expansion risks repeating old patterns rather than pushing the ecosystem forward.
In a recent post that later sparked wide discussion across the developer community, Buterin argued that many new EVM chains are built by copying existing architectures and attaching an optimistic bridge to Ethereum with a one week delay. He compared this pattern to the long-standing habit of forking Compound-style governance frameworks, a practice he said has offered short-term comfort while steadily draining creative ambition across the ecosystem.
Vitalik Buterin Calls Out Copying Pasting in EVM Chains
According to Buterin, this approach has become a default rather than a considered design choice. Teams replicate familiar infrastructure because it feels safe, even when it adds little that is new. Over time, he warned, that mindset risks pushing Ethereum’s broader ecosystem into a dead end where experimentation gives way to repetition.
He was even more critical of EVM chains that launch without any meaningful connection to Ethereum. In his view, pure Layer 1 alternatives built on copied EVM designs add little value at a time when Ethereum itself continues to scale. While Ethereum blockspace will never be infinite, he noted that ongoing upgrades are expected to provide substantial capacity, especially for most current applications. New chains that simply replicate the same execution environment fail to address real constraints or emerging needs.
Buterin stressed that future projects should aim to introduce capabilities that existing systems cannot easily provide. He pointed to privacy features, application-specific execution, and ultra-low latency environments as examples of areas where genuine progress could occur. He also acknowledged that this list is far from complete and that innovation may emerge in unexpected forms.
Beyond technical design, Buterin placed strong emphasis on how projects describe their relationship with Ethereum. In his view, public positioning should accurately reflect real dependencies. Labeling a project as closely tied to Ethereum, while relying only on a superficial bridge, creates confusion and weakens trust across the ecosystem.
He outlined architectures where Ethereum plays a deep and essential role. One example involved prediction markets where market creation, resolution, and user accounts remain on Ethereum’s main chain, while trading execution happens on a rollup or similar Layer 2 system. In this setup, Ethereum validates signatures and market states, ensuring security and composability. Such designs, he argued, treat Ethereum as a first-class component rather than an afterthought.
Buterin also described another class of application chains aimed at institutions, social platforms, or gaming systems. These systems could publish cryptographic proofs, such as STARK-based attestations, that verify updates were authorized and executed according to pre-committed rules. While these platforms would not meet Ethereum’s standards of neutrality or trustlessness, they could still deliver verifiable algorithmic transparency. That property, he suggested, could enable forms of economic and social activity that remain impractical today.
In his view, projects built on the first model can reasonably describe themselves as Ethereum applications, given their technical dependence and high degree of interoperability. Projects following the second model should instead communicate their goals directly, emphasizing transparency, trust minimization, and potential synergy with Ethereum, without overstating their integration.
The discussion quickly drew responses from across the crypto community. Jesse Dixon highlighted that the more meaningful divide may lie between projects that treat Ethereum as a core dependency and those that use it mainly as branding. Dixon suggested that identity, settlement, and validity anchored to Ethereum could still qualify a system as an Ethereum application, even if execution and user experience are pushed to faster external environments.
Also Read: Vitalik Buterin Questions Layer 2’s Original Vision; Sparks Debate
