Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has unveiled the new **“Trustless Manifesto,”** an initiative aimed at promoting decentralization, self-custody, and verifiability across the Ethereum network. Co-authored by Ethereum Foundation (EF) researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa, the manifesto emphasizes that Ethereum’s core purpose is not merely to make finance efficient but to enable coordination without reliance on trusted intermediaries.
### Hidden Centralization Risks
The team argues that a protocol begins to compromise its fundamental identity the moment it incorporates a centralized element, such as a hosted node or a controlled relayer. While such choices might seem minor initially, they can collectively erode permissionless access, trading off efficiency and a polished user experience.
According to the manifesto, a system is truly trustless only when any honest user can join, verify, and participate freely—without requiring permission or fearing interference. This trustlessness depends on every action being fully verifiable through public data and on ensuring no single operator becomes indispensable to the network’s operation.
The EF warns that simplicity built on reliance is not a sign of progress but rather a loss of independence. As the authors put it,
> “When complexity tempts us to centralize, we must remember: every line of convenience code can become a choke point.”
The document highlights the growing dependence on centralized infrastructure, such as major cloud providers hosting blockchain nodes, as evidence of a gradual shift toward centralization. The recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage underscored this risk: Coinbase’s Base chain experienced a roughly 25% drop in transaction capacity when its AWS-hosted sequencer went offline. In contrast, networks like Arbitrum and Optimism fared better by utilizing multiple cloud providers.
### Blockchains Urged to Prioritize Trustlessness Over Transaction Volume
This message arrives amid criticism aimed at some Layer 2 networks, which have been accused of prioritizing rapid scalability over true decentralization. Platforms like Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base have faced scrutiny for centralization risks such as single sequencer control and delayed decentralization plans—issues compounded by limited community participation in governance.
The authors propose a novel way to evaluate the long-term health of blockchain projects—not by their transaction throughput but by how effectively they reduce reliance on trust with every transaction processed.
Developers interested in supporting this vision can take the pledge by connecting their wallet, reading the manifesto, clicking “Sign the Trustless Manifesto Pledge,” and confirming the transaction.
### Community Support
The initiative has already garnered backing from several key figures within the Ethereum ecosystem, including EF member Tom Teman and pseudonymous crypto researcher hitas.
For more information, visit: [base.eth](https://base.eth).
https://bitcoinethereumnews.com/ethereum/ethereum-foundation-introduces-trustless-manifesto-to-push-for-decentralization-on-chain/