“Do More to Meet Stated Goals”: Vitalik Buterin’s 2026 Mandate for Ethereum Price

Is the Ethereum price inflated?

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Ethereum
ETH

$3,122.25


2.49%

Ethereum
ETH


Price

$3,122.25

2.49% /24h





Volume in 24h

$20.13B
<!–
?
–>


Price 7d

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Learn more

, for the most part, does what it promises; nothing less, nothing more. However, it appears that ETH founder Vitalik Buterin believes the foundations haven’t done enough.

Buterin is issuing a challenge as 2025 closes, and it has to do with whether ETH is drifting away from its original purpose.

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What Is Vitalik Buterin’s New Warning For 2026?

Welcome to 2026! Milady is back.

Ethereum did a lot in 2025: gas limits increased, blob count increased, node software quality improved, zkEVMs blasted through their performance milestones, and with zkEVMs and PeerDAS ethereum made its largest step toward being a fundamentally…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 1, 2026

In a New Year’s message, Vitalik Buterin urged developers to stop chasing short-term trends and start building applications that are both usable at scale and genuinely decentralized. Ethereum, he argued, is supposed to function as a “world computer,” not a slightly more open version of the subscription-driven platforms dominating Big Tech.

Hm, anyone feeling bearish hearing that?

Buterin stressed that decentralized applications should pass what he calls the “walkaway test.” If the original developers disappear, the app should still work without censorship, fraud, or third-party gatekeepers.

“To achieve this, it needs to be usable at scale and actually decentralized,” said Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder. “Applications must continue functioning even if the original developers leave,” he added.

The subtext is clear that too many Ethereum apps still rely on centralized infrastructure while marketing themselves as trustless.

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Did Ethereum’s 2025 Upgrades Quietly Changed the Game?

In 2025, the Ethereum community quietly built a better protocol. The Pectra upgrade raised throughput and streamlined how accounts and validators operate. Fusaka capped the year by scaling data availability through PeerDAS.

Yet the market barely noticed. Ether ended the year hovering near $3,000, far below the narrative highs many expected.

DISCOVER: Top 20 Crypto to Buy in 2025

The Data Tells The Story For ETH, Price Charts Don’t

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Ethereum
ETH

$3,122.25


2.49%

Ethereum
ETH


Price

$3,122.25

2.49% /24h





Volume in 24h

$20.13B
<!–
?
–>


Price 7d

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svg.attr(‘preserveAspectRatio’, ‘xMidYMid meet’);
}
});

Learn more

On-chain metrics help explain the disconnect for Ethereum. According to CoinGecko, Ether underperformed several large-cap peers in 2025 despite steady development activity. DeFi Llama shows total value locked on Ethereum holding relatively stable, suggesting builders stayed while speculative capital rotated elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Glassnode data indicates long-term holders remain largely unmoved, even as short-term traders lost interest.

As it stands, Ethereum is caught in an identity crisis. The ETH price is trading near multi-month lows, and debates over its future are here.

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