Vitalik Buterin Outlines Ethereum Foundation’s Vision for DeFi

Vitalik Buterin has articulated a refined vision for how the Ethereum Foundation (EF) will approach the sector moving forward.

Financial empowerment is central to Ethereum’s value proposition, but the foundation will not support the industry indiscriminately, Buterin says.

Instead, it will back protocols that align with specific principles of decentralization, privacy, and security.

Beyond "better stablecoins"

Buterin challenged developers to the innovative spirit that defined the early DeFi era.

"Ethereum's early defi era was great because it dared to dream and innovate and come up with totally new paradigms (eg. AMMs)," Buterin wrote. "Defi tomorrow will bring back that spirit. Don't just 'make a better stablecoin', dig a layer deeper, and think about the underlying problem... and come up with an even better solution."

He stressed that the goal should be to solve fundamental issues like risk management and hedging future expenses, rather than creating derivative products.

The "walkaway test"

Buterin believes that the so-called "walkaway test" can be viewed as a metric for true decentralization.

"We want protocols that pass the walkaway test: that keep working even if the original team suddenly disappears without warning (or even: becomes hostile / compromised without warning)," Buterin explained.

He clarified that the Foundation is not interested in supporting protocols that "enshrine ultimately unneeded centralized trust in the name of convenience, or dopamine-maximizing gambleslop." Instead, the focus is on "permissionless, open-source, private, security-first global finance."

Security, oracles, and privacy will be among the key areas of focus, according to Buterin.