If Bitcoin is digital gold, Ethereum is digital oil, reinforcing this role strongly in the realm of Tokenized Real-World Assets (RWA). Giants worth trillions have already taken steps to tokenize assets on the Ethereum network, and the RWA size has surpassed 15 billion dollars. The founder of Ethereum evaluated the year 2025 and shared his goals for both the present and future.
Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum
In 2025, the altcoin king achieved numerous milestones. Gas limits and the number of blobs were increased, improvements were made to node software quality, and zkEVMs overcame performance barriers. With zkEVMs and PeerDAS, Ethereum took firm strides towards becoming a fundamentally new and more powerful blockchain. However, certain challenges persist.
In his new year’s message, Vitalik Buterin highlighted the achievements required for 2026 and beyond. He stated, “We face a challenge: Ethereum must do more to achieve its self-set goals. Seeking ‘the next meta’ such as tokenized dollars or political memecoins isn’t our focus. Our mission is not about arbitrarily convincing people to fill block space to make ETH ultra-sound again. Our focus is on the MISSION.”
The Mission of Ethereum
Buterin emphasized that the Ethereum network must achieve more to reach its self-set goals, alluding to an era of applications free from central intermediaries. Often referred to as the computer of the internet, Ethereum adopts an approach aligned with this definition in the new era. “We’re developing decentralized applications. Applications that operate without fraud, censorship, or third-party intervention. Applications passing the walkaway test: continuing to function even if the original developers vanish.”
Applications that, as a user, you’d never notice if Cloudflare went down, or even if all of Cloudflare were hacked by North Korea. Applications with stability surpassing the rise and fall of companies, ideologies, and political parties. And applications that protect your privacy. All of this—not just for finance, but also for identity, governance, and any other civilization infrastructure people wish to build. These features might seem radical today but remember a generation ago, any wallet, kitchen appliance, book, or car fulfilled each of these.”
Today, everything above is becoming subscription services by default, making you permanently dependent on a central authority. Ethereum is a rebellion against this. Buterin implies that all network developments ultimately serve the ideal of a ‘decentralized internet computer.’ The improvements in speed, usability, decentralization, robust capacity, and other targeted enhancements of the Ethereum network will serve this ideal. Buterin stated that they will continue working towards this goal in the coming year.
