Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum is outgrowing its founder

Most founders spend their careers making themselves indispensable. Vitalik Buterin keeps making the case that Ethereum should be able to run without him. The Ethereum co-founder has again stressed that the protocol can progress without his direct involvement, as more community members take on responsibility for its core values. He made the point most recently at the Network State Conference 2026 in Singapore on October 9. It is a theme he has returned to repeatedly this year. What Buterin said in Singapore Buterin used the Singapore stage to describe a shift toward a widely distributed leadership model across the Ethereum community. He also linked that shift to technology. Buterin said AI could speed up the “Lean Ethereum” roadmap, a planned overhaul meant to make the protocol more efficient. Lean Ethereum is not a minor patch. The proposal aims to replace significant core components of the protocol, which makes it one of the more ambitious engineering projects in the ecosystem. A smaller Ethereum Foundation, by design In May, he said the Ethereum Foundation (EF) should become smaller and concentrate on a narrow set of core properties. Those properties are censorship resistance, op...