Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined two core priorities for the next phase of Ethereum’s development, pairing an ambitious technical roadmap with a fresh focus on long-term institutional resilience. In a recent X post, Buterin said the Ethereum Foundation is entering a period of mild austerity over the next five years to advance the network while safeguarding its core mission. The first priority is to deliver an aggressive roadmap that preserves Ethereum’s role as a scalable, high-performance world computer without compromising robustness, sustainability, or decentralization. The second is ensuring the Foundation’s durability. This need includes the ability to protect user self-sovereignty, security, and privacy across the core blockchain layer and the ecosystem of tools that enable safe access to and use of Ethereum. As part of this shift, Buterin said he is personally taking on responsibilities that might previously have been handled as special projects. His focus is on developing an open-source, secure, and verifiable full-stack of software and hardware capable of protecting both private life and public infrastructure. Areas of interest include finance, communications, governance systems, operating systems, secure hardware, blockchains, and biotechnology, spanning both personal and public health. Advertisement Buterin also pointed to initiatives such as open silicon efforts for security-critical use cases, privacy-preserving software with advanced cryptographic guarantees, environmental monitoring, and continued support for encrypted messaging tools. To fund these efforts, the Ethereum co-founder confirmed he has withdrawn 16,384 ETH, which will be deployed gradually over the coming years. He is also exploring secure decentralized staking approaches that could allow future staking rewards to support the same objectives on an ongoing basis. Buterin stressed that Ethereum itself is central to this vision of full-stack openness and verifiability. While broad adoption is welcome, he argued the primary goal is not corporate dominance but Ethereum for people who genuinely need it. Buterin framed this as an alternative to power-driven technological arms races, emphasizing infrastructure that enables cooperation without domination, and tools that protect autonomy and safety as a fundamental right rather than a gated service.