Misunderstood "Degeneration": Why Ethereum's Restraint Is Its Strongest Moat

In recent times, a subtle sense of frustration has been circulating within the Ethereum community. On one hand, technical discussions are lively—Rollup, ZK, PBS, Interop… a never-ending stream of upgrades that seem grand and cutting-edge; on the other hand, voices of doubt are fermenting—why is Ethereum always so “slow”? Why is the token price lackluster? Is the Foundation too arrogant?

This divide points to a deeper question: Is Ethereum truly evolving, or is it regressing?

But if we look at this question over a longer time horizon, we find that what is called “regression” is actually a misinterpretation of values.

Community Frustration: Why the Rise of High-Performance Public Chains Leads to Self-Doubt in Ethereum

In the past year or two, Ethereum appears to be facing unprecedented “performance anxiety.”

Solana breaks TPS records, Sui optimizes latency, various new public chains pile up TVL… one competitor after another speaks with numbers. And Ethereum? Still repeatedly discussing architecture splitting, execution outsourcing, cross-chain interoperability—technologies that seem neither intuitive nor “clever.”

This naturally raises a sharp question: Is Ethereum being abandoned by the times?

To answer this, we need to broaden our perspective—look back over the past decade, and see what Ethereum has persisted with.

In fact, many emerging high-performance public chains have taken a “shortcut”: reducing node count, raising hardware thresholds, centralizing ordering and execution, to achieve extreme performance and user experience. It seems smart—abandoning some “unnecessary” parts to gain maximum benefit at minimal cost.

But Ethereum chose a different path. In nearly ten years of operation, Ethereum has never experienced a network-wide crash or rollback, maintaining 7×24×365 uptime. This is not “luck,” but stems from an early, uncompromising design philosophy: Even in the worst case, the system must continue to operate.

What does this mean?

It means that Ethereum’s design team has never asked “how to be the fastest,” but rather “when the network scales up, with more participants and external pressures, can this system still operate reliably?”

So, Ethereum’s “slowness” is not because it cannot be faster, but because every optimization involves weighing an invisible cost.

Not Regression, But Reflection: Why Ethereum Insists on a “Stable but Restraint” Approach

The first step to understanding Ethereum is accepting an unpopulist fact: Ethereum does not aim solely for “maximized efficiency,” but centers on “remaining trustworthy even in the worst case.”

This determines that every choice Ethereum makes is fundamentally a value trade-off, not just a technical decision:

• Should we sacrifice decentralization for speed?
• Should we introduce powerful permissioned nodes for higher throughput?
• Should we entrust security assumptions to a few for better user experience?

The Ethereum community’s answer has always been no. Because of this, the community remains almost instinctively cautious about any “shortcut” solutions. There, “can we do it” always gives way to “should we do it.”

This persistence is seen by some as conservative or outdated. But from another perspective, it reflects a maturity in Ethereum’s design—rejecting the use of systemic future risks to gain short-term advantages.

This also explains why technologies like Rollup, ZK, Interop, though not as immediately “high-performance” as full-chain solutions, remain core to Ethereum’s roadmap—they gradually address performance issues while maintaining security and trustworthiness.

True “regression” would be to abandon principles for traffic, but Ethereum is the opposite.

The True Meaning of “Alignment”: Not a Loyalty Test, But an Ecosystem Symbiosis Contract

Recently, another controversial concept in the community is “Alignment,” with concerns that it might turn into moral coercion or a tool for power rent-seeking.

Such worries are not unfounded. As early as September 2024, Vitalik Buterin explicitly pointed out this risk in “Making Ethereum alignment legible”:

If “alignment” means whether you have “the right friends,” then the concept itself has already failed.

His proposed solution is interesting: instead of abandoning alignment, make it decomposable, discussable, and examinable.

Specifically, Vitalik breaks down alignment into three dimensions:

• Technical Alignment: Do you use Ethereum’s security consensus? Do you follow open-source and open standards?
• Economic Alignment: Do you promote long-term ETH value capture, rather than one-way extraction of ecosystem value?
• Spiritual Alignment: Do you pursue public interest, not just predatory growth?

From this perspective, alignment is not a loyalty test or moral judgment, but a mutualistic social contract—participants can compete, innovate, and even compete fiercely, but ultimately, these activities should feed back into the core system that provides security, consensus, and settlement.

This clarifies a boundary: I allow you to do many things, but I need to ensure these activities do not weaken the foundation of the entire system.

Two Pillars: How Decentralization and Censorship Resistance Support Ethereum’s Beliefs

If “alignment” defines the value boundary, then what sustains this boundary are two long-held core principles of Ethereum: decentralization and censorship resistance.

First, decentralization. Many misunderstand this as “more nodes are better” or “everyone should run a node.”

But in Ethereum’s context, true decentralization means: The system can operate normally without relying on any single participant. This means the protocol cannot depend on a specific sequencer, coordinator, or company; it also means that node operation costs cannot be so high that only professional institutions can participate, allowing ordinary people to verify the system’s correctness.

Because of this, Ethereum has maintained long-term restraint on hardware requirements, bandwidth, and state bloat. These restraints may seem like “self-imposed limitations” in the short term, but fundamentally they protect the system’s verifiability—a fast system that cannot be verified by ordinary users is essentially no longer permissionless.

Second, censorship resistance. Ethereum does not assume the world is friendly. Instead, from the beginning, it assumes—participants may seek profit, power may concentrate, external pressures will inevitably arise.

Thus, censorship resistance does not mean “no one will ever try to censor,” but that even if someone attempts censorship, the system will not fail. This explains why Ethereum emphasizes mechanisms like Proposer/Builder separation, decentralized construction, and economic game design. Not because they are theoretically elegant, but because they ensure the system can continue operating under worst-case scenarios.

People may ask: are such extreme situations really possible in reality?

The answer is—if a system is only safe in an ideal world, then it’s not worth trusting with real value. This is the logic Ethereum has upheld for ten years.

A Decade of Witness: Why the Choices of Stakers Are More Convincing Than Declarations

Finally, an interesting data point. Among all debates about Ethereum “regressing,” one often overlooked is: Currently, the PoS staking withdrawal queue is nearly cleared, while the staking queue continues to grow, with over 1.57 million ETH staked.

What does this mean?

Despite doubts, debates, and uncertainties, many holders choose to lock their assets long-term into this system. This choice often speaks louder than any official declaration—it’s not a vote for a specific product or feature, but a vote for the underlying logic of the system.

In Closing

Many critics say Ethereum is always “discussing philosophy after others have already run ahead.”

But from another angle, it is precisely these discussions about “how” to do things that have helped Ethereum avoid repeated rebuilds—whether it’s the Rollup-centric roadmap, the gradual introduction of ZK, or solutions like Interop, fast finality, and slot shortening—all fundamentally follow the same premise:

All performance improvements must be compatible with existing security and value assumptions.

This also explains why Ethereum’s evolution often appears “conservative but steady.” In essence, it’s not about rejecting efficiency, but about refusing to gamble today’s short-term gains on future systemic risks.

This persistence is especially precious in an era obsessed with “efficiency/TVL,” and is perhaps the most valuable thing Web3 can safeguard. In this sense, what is called “regression” is actually a form of high-level restraint—a broad moat protecting the system.