A Post-Vitalik Ethereum Could Still Thrive, Says Co-Founder

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pointed to the network’s growing independence as a clear marker of its maturity. In comments made during an October 9, 2026 interview with Balaji Srinivasan at the Network State Conference, Buterin said a healthy sign for Ethereum is that it can continue progressing even without his constant involvement.

The crypto Billionaire spoke about the trauma that came with holding a front-facing role in Ethereum. Envisioning a future where multiple leaders thrive, the Ethereum co-founder said decentralization is not about going from one leader to zero, but from one to many, and that Ethereum is beginning to move in that direction.

“The thing that I look forward to is, are other people in the foundation and community able to push it forward and defend the right values even without my involvement? And I feel like that has recently been happening more and more and very effectively,” he asserts.

Buterin noted that remaining in the spotlight for so long can be draining. He framed decentralization not as a shift from one leader to none, but as a move from one leader to many. He suggested Ethereum is beginning to demonstrate that transition.

He evaluates progress by whether people across the Ethereum Foundation and the broader community can keep driving the project forward and uphold core values such as security and privacy on their own. In his view, a particularly encouraging development is that more contributors are now taking initiative without waiting for him to speak first.

The remarks highlight Buterin’s long-standing emphasis on reducing reliance on any single individual as the ecosystem matures.

Vitalik Buterin proposed Ethereum in a 2013 whitepaper and co-founded the project, which launched in July 2015 as a smart-contract platform. He has led the network’s evolution into the leading decentralized computing network, including the shift to proof-of-stake. Buterin’s net worth is roughly $530 million, mainly in ETH, while Ethereum’s market capitalization at the time is $295 billion.