Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wants the crypto world to remember what this was all about.
In a post on X, Buterin went back to 2014. The original plan for Ethereum wasn’t just about trading coins, but to build a full alternative to Big Tech.
“In 2014, there was a vision: you can have permissionless, decentralized applications that could support finance, social media, ride sharing, governing organizations, crowdfunding, potentially create an entire alternative web,” he said.
But then came DeFi, NFTs, and memecoins. The core idea got buried.
“Over the last five years, this core vision has at times become obscured, with various ‘metas’ and ‘narratives’ at various times taking center stage. But the core vision has never died.”
Buterin says all the pieces are finally in place.
Ethereum runs on proof of stake. Transactions are cheap. Scaling through ZK-EVMs and L2s is working. Whisper, the old messaging layer, evolved into Waku. Apps like Status and Railway already use it.
He pointed to Fileverse as proof. It’s a decentralized version of Google Docs with no company servers and central control.
The key test is what happens if Fileverse disappears. Buterin says your documents survive. You can still open them, edit them, share them. He calls this the “walkaway test.”
The Ethereum founder took a shot at how centralized tech works today.
“Build a hammer that is a tool you buy once and it’s yours, not a corposlop AI dishwasher that requires you to register for a google account and charges a subscription fee per month for extra washing modes, and probably spies on you,” he wrote.
He backed it up with examples. Dishwashers that need subscriptions for basic features. Air fryers that track what you cook. US sanctions locking a judge out of everyday apps.
The tech is finally ready. Early decentralized apps were clunky and unusable compared to web2. Now, decentralized tools actually work for real tasks like writing, sharing, and collaborating.
That means builders should stop experimenting in theory and start shipping practical products.
The decentralized renaissance depends on builders turning mature infrastructure into real-world software.
Users in regions facing censorship, sanctions, or platform restrictions benefit the most, as decentralized apps reduce reliance on centralized gatekeepers. Developers also gain freedom from app-store and hosting dependencies.
User experience, onboarding complexity, and education remain key hurdles. Even with mature infrastructure, decentralized apps must compete with the simplicity of existing Web2 services.
More production-ready applications aimed at real-world collaboration, identity, and communication are likely to emerge. Adoption will depend on whether these tools feel seamless and reliable in daily use.
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