Ethereum Foundation Publishes “Trustless Manifesto” Defining the Future of Decentralized Infrastructure
The Ethereum Foundation has published the “Trustless Manifesto”, a formal declaration created by Vitalik Buterin and the Account Abstraction team, defining the core principles that will guide the future of Ethereum’s decentralized infrastructure. The document, permanently stored in a smart contract, serves as both a philosophical and technical framework for building systems without intermediaries.
Core Principles of Trustless Systems
According to the manifesto, trustless systems must adhere to a set of verifiable, user-controlled standards that ensure open participation and protocol-level fairness. Key principles include:
• User autonomy: All actions within the network must be initiated and authorized by users themselves.
• Public verifiability: Every data point and transaction should remain auditable by anyone, ensuring transparency.
• Censorship resistance: Valid transactions should never be blocked or dependent on centralized permissions.
• Operator neutrality: Network operators must be interchangeable, maintaining fairness and reliability.
• Inclusive participation: Access to network functions should remain open to all, without hidden barriers.
• Protocol governance: Rules and enforcement mechanisms should be embedded in the code — not dictated by private services.
Vision for Ethereum’s Future
The Ethereum Foundation emphasizes that the blockchain’s continued success depends on its ability to maintain neutrality and autonomy. The “Trustless Manifesto” aims to ensure that Ethereum remains a user-driven, verifiable, and permissionless system, even as it grows to accommodate new technologies like Layer-2 networks, restaking, and cross-chain interoperability.
By enshrining the manifesto in a smart contract, the Foundation demonstrates Ethereum’s commitment to on-chain governance — where principles are not merely aspirational but coded into the protocol itself.
Why the Manifesto Matters
This initiative marks a philosophical return to Ethereum’s original mission: creating a financial and computational system that removes intermediaries, reduces trust dependencies, and empowers individuals to control their digital interactions.
In a statement accompanying the release, Buterin highlighted the importance of accountability through open verification:
“True decentralization isn’t about removing people — it’s about ensuring that systems work reliably even when you don’t need to trust them.”
A Foundation for the Next Era of Ethereum
As Ethereum continues evolving toward greater scalability and usability, the “Trustless Manifesto” serves as a moral and architectural compass for developers and ecosystem participants.
By codifying these principles, the Foundation reaffirms Ethereum’s role as the leading platform for transparent, autonomous, and equitable decentralized applications, setting the standard for how Web3 infrastructure should be built in the years ahead.
