Vitalik Buterin wants Ethereum to stop changing.
Speaking at the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires, Buterin openly declared that the blockchain’s base layer should ossify — locking down core features to prevent changes that could introduce bugs into the ecosystem.
“More and more ossification over time is good for Ethereum,” Buterin told the packed auditorium. “We have a much lower rate of surprises now.”
Hanging on his every word, the crowd of over 500 listeners murmured at the idea.
That’s because Buterin’s words are a sharp turn for a protocol built on flexibility and experimentation.
Indeed, for years, Ethereum’s ability to change was its main selling point — developers could build anything, and the protocol itself would evolve to support new use cases.
Now, Buterin reckons that stability matters more than adaptability. A locked-down base layer might be less exciting, but it’s also less likely to break.
And for a network securing hundreds of billions in value, perhaps boring is a feature, not a bug.
Ossification isn’t binary
Buterin argued that Ethereum can ossify different layers at different speeds.
The consensus layer could lock down changes while the Ethereum Virtual Machine remains openly flexible. Or vice-versa.
“It’s good to maintain some flexibility,” he said.