⚡️ Friends, Ethereum took a big step in 2026, as it began to no longer weaken the principles of decentralization to cater to mainstream users.
In the past few years, Ethereum has been making compromises, trying to find a balance between decentralization and convenience. It traded trust for convenience and autonomy for a better user experience, but all of this has led to increasing centralization of the infrastructure, and trust assumptions have subtly seeped into the system. Until 2026, the situation began to change.
Now, Ethereum's goal is no longer to be good enough in decentralization, but to do better. Its vision is to return to the core values of decentralization through some innovative technologies, while not sacrificing user experience.
For example, the combination of Block-level Access Lists (BAL) and zero-knowledge proofs can significantly reduce the storage requirements and synchronization time for full nodes, allowing ordinary laptops to easily run nodes, making decentralization no longer a privilege of tech companies. The Helios light client fundamentally changes the trust issue of RPC, enabling users to verify data themselves without having to trust any single provider, which makes decentralization more reliable.
In terms of privacy, the introduction of ORAM (Oblivious RAM) and PIR (Private Information Retrieval) technologies can also protect users' privacy, preventing the exposure of their activity trails. The social recovery system addresses the issue of traditional mnemonic phrases being easily lost or stolen, allowing users to recover accounts with the help of friends and family, completely freeing them from the worries of losing a single key.
The introduction of FOCIL (Forced Inclusion List) and IPFS-hosted dapps means that censorship will no longer be a problem. FOCIL ensures the fairness and privacy of transactions by requiring validators to include specific transactions, while IPFS resolves the single point of failure issue for web applications through decentralized storage, eliminating the risk of server downtime, allowing users seamless access to applications and avoiding the risks of hacking.
Vitalik famously said, 'If Ethereum is just another platform that relies on intermediaries, then why don't we just use AWS?' This is precisely what makes Ethereum unique: it offers not just a decentralized ledger, but an open network that is trustless and censorship-resistant. In this network, users can truly own their assets and data, enjoying unprecedented control.
In 2026, Ethereum is no longer compromising its approach to dilute itself for mainstream adoption. It aims for a future that does not rely on centralized infrastructure, and while this path is destined to be challenging, it has already honed its technology and philosophy to a mature state, and the steps towards this future have begun.
