Vitalik Buterin’s Mind-Boggling Plan to Make Ethereum Safer Than Your Grandma’s Cookies!

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In a world where blockchain security is as elusive as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is on a quest to redefine what it means to keep your digital treasures safe. Because, why not?

This Canadian prodigy, who probably has more ideas than socks, has discovered that the age-old barriers between “security” and “user experience” (or UX, if you’re feeling particularly trendy) are about as solid as a chocolate teapot.

“The goal is to minimize the divergence between the user’s intent and the actual behavior of the system,” Buterin declared with all the gravitas of a wizard casting a spell, as he tweeted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

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The Illusion of “Perfect Security”

Buterin, in his infinite wisdom, pointed out that what users want-like getting rid of their pesky neighbor-is rarely as simple as clicking a few buttons. Who knew?

“[P]erfect security is impossible,” explained Buterin, elegantly sidestepping the obvious flaw in every machine ever made. “Not because machines are ‘flawed’, or even because the humans designing them are ‘flawed’, but because ‘the user’s intent’ is fundamentally an extremely complex object that the user themselves does not have easy access to.” In other words, good luck figuring out what you really want.

He used a basic transaction for illustration: sending 1 ETH to Bob. The user knows who “Bob” is in real life (a meatspace entity, for those who forgot their biology), but translating “Bob” into a mathematical public key or hash is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole while blindfolded. And don’t get him started on abstract goals like “preserving privacy”-they’re tougher to define than a cat’s mood swings.

Buterin argued that developers should rely on overlapping safety nets, because let’s face it, one safety net is just begging for a circus act gone wrong.

“[T]he common trait of a good solution is: the user is specifying their intention in multiple, overlapping ways, and the system only acts when these specifications are aligned with each other,” he noted, sounding suspiciously like a motivational poster.

Buterin is eager to make the principle of redundancy a standard feature in Ethereum wallets and decentralized applications (dApps), so if one fails, another can step in like a dependable sidekick in a buddy cop movie.

AI as a “Shadow” of Human Intent

Our hero believes that large language models (LLMs) could help verify what users actually want to accomplish-because who doesn’t want a digital assistant that can read your mind (sort of)?

“LLMs done right are themselves a simulation of intent,” he wrote. “A generic LLM is (among other things) like a ‘shadow’ of the concept of human common sense.” Which, if you’ve ever seen a cat, you know is about as common as a unicorn at a barbecue.

A user-fine-tuned LLM is like a ‘shadow’ of the user themselves, capable of discerning normal from unusual behavior, which is a handy trick if you ever find yourself trapped in a conversation about the weather.

However, he cautioned that LLMs “should under no circumstances be relied on as a sole determiner of intent.” Instead, they provide a delightful extra layer of verification, much like a double-checking friend who reminds you that yes, you did forget to turn off the oven.

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2026-02-23 09:36