Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum has solved the Blockchain trilemma

Buterin sees Ethereum’s progress as a structural shift, not a performance adjustment, and points out that live code is already reshaping the network.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared this weekend that the blockchain trilemma, the long-held belief that a network cannot simultaneously achieve decentralization, security and scalability, has been solved.

His statement marks a crucial claim for the ecosystem, claiming that this breakthrough is no longer theoretical, but is realized through live technology on the network.

Live upgrades change Ethereum’s network design

In a detailed post shared on X on January 3, Buterin argued that the rollout of PeerDAS on Ethereum’s mainnet, combined with zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (ZK-EVMs) reaching alpha, has changed what the network can do in practice.

“The trilemma has been solved – not on paper, but with live running code,” he wrote.

Buterin also noted that data availability sampling is already active, while ZK-EVMs have achieved “production quality performance”, while safety work is still ongoing.

He compared Ethereum’s current structure to previous peer-to-peer systems such as BitTorrent, which he said offered high bandwidth but lacked consensus, and Bitcoin, which he claimed had achieved strong consensus and decentralization at the expense of throughput.

According to the developer, Ethereum with PeerDAS and ZK-EVMs now combines all three, allowing high bandwidth without central control. He described the shift as “not small improvements,” but a step toward “a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.”

Buterin’s post also outlined a multi-year roadmap. He expects larger increases in gas limits in 2026, early opportunities to operate ZK-EVM nodes, and further adjustments through 2030 as ZK-EVMs become a primary way to validate blocks. He added that building distributed blocks is still a long-term goal to reduce central points of control in ordering transactions.

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The community’s response reflected both excitement and debate. CryptoSensei wrote that these changes “are not incremental adjustments” and emphasized that PeerDAS, because it is live, makes it harder to dismiss the claims as theory.

Others, like Solana developer Mert Mumtaz, rejected the blockchain trilemma as an outdated concept.

“It doesn’t really exist. The trilemma doesn’t really exist today,” he said on X.

Why decentralization is still important

The Ethereum architect’s comments follow previous warnings about centralization risks. In his New Year’s message, he said the future of the blockchain depends not only on upgrades, but also on keeping decentralization and usability intact as it grows.

That concern gained momentum in 2025, a year marked by major upgrades like Pectra and Fusaka, but also by criticism that Ethereum was increasingly dependent on Layer-2 networks and large staking operators.

Market performance added to the tension, with the price of the network’s native ETH token lagging behind 2025 despite higher usage, institutional interest and record development activity, raising questions about whether technical progress alone can translate into investor confidence.

Analysts say Buterin’s latest message reframes the debate. Rather than discussing short-term price movements, the focus is on whether Ethereum can support large-scale applications without censorship, downtime, or excessive fees. Like Daniel Tschinkel pointed out in a recent social post, users ultimately rely on systems that work consistently and predictably.