Buterin Proposes Metrics to Gauge Alignment with Ethereum Values

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed developing a set of metrics to measure how projects align with Ethereum’s values.

According to him, achieving network “alignment” remains one of the most crucial social tasks within the ecosystem of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It encompasses a multitude of people and organizations—validators, researchers, L2 solutions, application developers, and community groups.

“The main task is to ensure that all these projects collectively create something resembling a unified Ethereum ecosystem, rather than 138 incompatible feudal domains,” Buterin wrote.

The developer suggested creating a clear concept of alignment, broken down into specific components and metrics. As starting points, he mentioned:

• open source — important for two reasons: the ability for third-party verification to ensure security and improvement. Not all parts of every application need to be open, but the core infrastructure elements must be;
• open standards — striving for interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem and development based on existing solutions (ERC-20, ERC-1271) and new ones (account abstraction, cross-chain transfers between L2s, and others);
• decentralization and security — avoiding trust points, minimizing censorship vulnerabilities, and dependence on centralized infrastructure. Metrics for understanding the level of decentralization could include the exit test (if the team and servers disappear tomorrow, will the application continue to function) and the insider attack (if the team attempts to attack the system, can it cause harm);
• positive outcome.

Buterin divides the last point into two components:

• positive outcome for Ethereum — a project’s success should benefit the entire cryptocurrency community, such as ETH holders or network users. Examples include coin usage, contributions to open-source technology, and commitments to donate a certain share of tokens or revenues to ecosystem development.
• positive outcome for the world — the project should make the world more free and open, provide new forms of ownership and collaboration, and contribute positively to solving important problems facing humanity.

The Ethereum co-founder emphasizes that not all metrics must necessarily apply to every project. Depending on its purpose, they can be adjusted. Points for L2s, wallets, or decentralized social networks will look entirely different.

Today, the most readable metric is token donation, Buterin believes. As an example of a platform for tracking how individual projects meet the above criteria, the developer mentioned L2BEAT.

Earlier, Buterin proposed increasing the number of BLOB objects in Ethereum blocks.

Back in September, he changed his approach to mentioning L2, promising to speak only about projects at “stage 1+.”