Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is once again pushing for decentralized social media — and this time, he says he’s all in.
In a recent post on X, Buterin said he plans to be “fully back to decentralized social” by 2026. His reasoning is simple: today’s dominant platforms are structurally broken.
“If we want a better society, we need better mass communication tools,” he wrote.
For Buterin, the problem isn’t just toxic discourse or bad actors. It’s the systems themselves. Modern social platforms, he argues, are designed to maximise engagement at all costs — not to surface high-quality information, help people find common ground, or serve users over the long term.
Why Decentralization Matters
Buterin believes decentralization offers something today’s platforms can’t: real competition.
Instead of one company controlling the algorithm, the interface, and the data, decentralized systems can share a common social graph. That allows multiple apps and clients to compete on experience, moderation, and values — without locking users in.
“Decentralization is the way to enable that,” he said, stressing that choice at the client level is key to healthier online conversations.
This isn’t just theory for Buterin. He says his shift back to decentralized social is already underway.
Since the start of the year, every post he’s read or written has been accessed through Firefly — a multi-client interface that connects platforms like X, Lens, Farcaster, and Bluesky.
The takeaway, he suggests, is that decentralized tools don’t need to replace centralized platforms overnight. They can live alongside them — and slowly pull attention away.
Tokens Aren’t a Substitute for Good Social Design
Buterin was especially critical of crypto-native social projects that mistake tokens for innovation.
Adding a speculative token, he argued, doesn’t magically make a platform better. While money and social interaction can work together — he pointed to Substack as a positive example — problems start when platforms turn creators into tradable assets.
Over the years, Buterin says, many attempts to financialise social influence have followed the same pattern: early hype, inflated prices, rewards flowing to people who already had social clout — and then collapse as tokens drift toward zero.
He dismissed the idea that creating new markets is automatically beneficial, calling it “galaxy-brained” thinking that ignores the real goal: improving how information flows online.
“That is not Hayekian info-utopia,” he wrote. “That is corposlop.”
Putting the “Social” Back in Social Media
For decentralized social media to actually work, Buterin says the focus has to return to the social problem itself.
He praised the Aave team’s work on Lens so far and said he’s optimistic about the project’s next phase, especially with a new team that has long cared about encrypted communication and privacy.
This year, Buterin plans to post more actively on Lens and encouraged users to spend more time across Lens, Farcaster, and the broader decentralized social ecosystem.
The bigger goal, he says, is to move away from “a single global info warzone” — and toward a more open frontier, where healthier and more human forms of online interaction can grow.
