Ethereum DApps and the Weakness of Today’s Internet
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has warned against a quiet but dangerous vulnerability in the modern internet.
As Buterin stated in a recent post on X, Ethereum DApps could help users escape many internet outages, including the Cloudflare outage in November that temporarily took down nearly 20% of websites. However, he stresses that Ethereum must advance significantly to achieve true decentralization.
Buterin explains that the long-term goal of the Ethereum network is to become the “world computer” — a base layer for a more open, robust, and free Internet.
The Importance of DApps Moving Away from Centralization
What Does a Resilient DApp Look Like?
Centralized services should remain invisible to users unless they fail, according to Buterin.
He wrote that a resilient application is one where users “don’t even notice if Cloudflare goes down”, even in extreme scenarios like hacking or major geopolitical events.
Ethereum DApps must satisfy key criteria:
- Function without censorship or interference by any third party
- Maintain stability despite business, political, or ideological disruptions
- Protect users’ privacy by default
- Deliver consistent performance in real-world conditions
Buterin emphasized that these principles extend beyond finance: blockchain-native resilience can apply to identity systems, governance platforms, and digital public infrastructure.
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Systemic Weaknesses: Cloudflare and AWS Outages
The Dangers of Centralization Extend to Crypto
According to Cloudflare’s post-mortem, a software failure in its bot-management system caused the November outage. While the glitch was technically simple, the impact was severe.
After Amazon Web Services (AWS) went down a few weeks later, websites and services of several crypto platforms, including Coinbase, Blockchain.com, BitMEX, and Ledger, were also taken offline.
These chain reactions raised concerns in the DeFi space: if decentralized finance relies on centralized web infrastructure, how decentralized is it really?
Decentralization: A Quiet but Steady Process
Ethereum Researchers Warn of “Convenience Drift”
Buterin has previously noted that decentralization rarely fails due to hostile takeovers.
In a November Ethereum Foundation manifesto co-written with researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner, the team stated:
Decentralization erodes not through capture but through convenience. Systems drift toward reliance on trust.
They warn that centralized hosting, APIs, and content delivery networks (CDNs) could weaken the very resilience that blockchains are designed to provide.
Buterin’s Wider Ethereum Roadmap Beyond DApps
On-chain Gas Futures and Predictable Fees
Beyond infrastructure resilience, Buterin is exploring ways to improve Ethereum’s usability. He recently proposed a trustless, on-chain gas futures market, which would allow users to predict transaction fees — addressing a long-standing barrier to Ethereum adoption.
These innovations signal that Ethereum is evolving from a financial experiment to a dependable civilizational infrastructure.
A Broader Viewpoint
The Cloudflare outage highlighted the fragility of today’s internet.
For Vitalik Buterin, the solution isn’t better centralized services — it’s Ethereum DApps that don’t depend on them. If successful, this shift could reshape how societies design finance, identity, governance, and trust online without single points of failure.
In Buterin’s view, decentralization is not merely a slogan — it is a survival strategy for the internet.
