- The manifesto lists strict rules to prevent hidden intermediaries and unverifiable outcomes.
- Ethereum upgrades target relayers, block builders, and RPC points to boost neutrality.
- The release follows rising concerns over governance influence and protocol direction.
Vitalik Buterin has signed the newly published Trustless Manifesto, a forceful declaration urging developers to rebuild blockchain systems around verifiable math rather than hidden intermediaries. The document, released on November 11 with contributions from Ethereum Foundation researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner, sets out a strict standard for how decentralization should be preserved as the ecosystem grows.
A Direct Call to Eliminate Hidden Gatekeepers
At its core, the manifesto warns that decentralization weakens gradually, not through dramatic takeovers, but through day-to-day convenience. It argues that hosted nodes, whitelisted relayers, managed RPC endpoints, cloud-focused deployment, and “temporary shortcuts” quietly become default behaviors. Over time, these patterns turn open protocols into systems guided by a handful of technical operators.
The authors stress that trustlessness is not a decorative feature. It is the defining protection that keeps a protocol neutral, preventing any actor from becoming a bottleneck that others must depend on. If a system requires goodwill rather than transparent verification, it stops being a public network and starts resembling a platform controlled by a select group.
This erosion, the document notes, already appears in Ethereum’s infrastructure, including the heavy reliance on AWS, GCP, and Cloudflare, along with centralized sequencing in several layer-2 networks. A recent AWS outage that cut throughput on Base by roughly one-quarter is cited as an example of a “theoretically open but practically fragile” design.
Six Requirements and Three Laws for Trustless Architecture
To guard against these pressures, the manifesto lists six conditions that any decentralized system must satisfy:
- Users control and authorize their own actions
- All outcomes can be verified from public data
- Censorship cannot persist beyond a reasonable time
- Any operator can be replaced without approval
- Participation must be feasible for ordinary users
- Incentives must be transparent and reviewable
It adds three governing laws prohibiting:
- Secrets that only one actor holds
- Intermediaries that users cannot replace in practice
- Outcomes that cannot be reproduced or checked publicly
The authors describe these rules as intentionally strict, noting that while they may slow development, they are the only reliable way to ensure systems do not drift into the hands of a narrow group.
Ethereum’s Upgrade Path Measured Against Manifesto Standards
After the manifesto drew attention on X, a commenter asked whether Ethereum’s block-building pipeline and RPC structure already violate these principles. In response, Buterin outlined several ongoing efforts meant to reduce trust concentration throughout the network:
- The shift toward smart-wallet operations through EIP-4337 and the planned EIP-7701 removes reliance on centralized relayers, letting users interact without third-party gatekeepers.
- The FOCIL initiative seeks to reduce the power of specialized block builders, lowering the risk that block inclusion becomes dependent on a small group of operators.
- Improvements in node accessibility continue through the combination of BAL and ZK-EVM, which lowers hardware demands and brings full-node operation closer to everyday users.
- Research under the Kohaku project aims to allow private state reads without routing traffic through trusted RPC providers, reducing the influence of centralized data endpoints.
Vitalik on Ethereum’s Transparency (Source: X)
Buterin said these changes push Ethereum toward an environment with transparent logic, replaceable infrastructure, and genuine permissionless participation.
Broader Influence Concerns Add Weight to the Debate
The manifesto arrives during heightened scrutiny of Ethereum’s internal governance. In a previously published letter from May 2024, former Geth lead developer Péter Szilágyi described how a small set of individuals surrounding Buterin hold “complete indirect control” over protocol direction through attention, funding, and research allocation.
He also described his compensation during six years of work, about $625,000 with no benefits or raises, as creating perverse incentives that push contributors toward external funding sources. At the same time, concerns have risen around venture firm Paradigm, which manages $12.7 billion and has expanded its influence over key Ethereum tools while launching Tempo, a separate layer-1 backed by $500 million.
The departure of longtime researcher Dankrad Feist to Tempo added to developer anxiety about corporate influence shaping open-source ecosystems. However, the Trustless Manifesto, now recorded permanently on Ethereum’s mainnet, positions itself as a counterweight to these pressures by reaffirming decentralization as a non-negotiable requirement rather than a marketing ideal.
