The persistence behind bandwidth testing: Why doesn't Ethereum take shortcuts?

Over the past period, discussions about the future direction of Ethereum seem to be increasingly divided. On one side, the technical community is intensely debating frontier topics such as Rollup architecture, interoperability, ZK proofs, and more. On the other side, there are waves of questioning about “whether the Ethereum Foundation is arrogant” and “why development isn’t more aggressive.” Behind these controversies lies a deeper question: what kind of system does Ethereum truly aim to become?

In fact, many criticisms are not rooted in technical disagreements but stem from different understandings of Ethereum’s “fundamental premises.” Only by returning to these premises can we truly grasp the logic behind Ethereum’s seemingly “out-of-date” decisions.

A Decade of Testing: System Reliability Over Performance Metrics

One of the most common doubts about Ethereum is that it is “degrading.”

This concern is understandable. While other public chains continuously push the boundaries of TPS, TVL, and user experience metrics, Ethereum is focused on discussions about architecture optimization, execution layer separation, and cross-layer interoperability—topics that are neither intuitive nor eye-catching.

But there is a often-overlooked fact: In nearly ten years of operation, Ethereum has never experienced a network-wide shutdown or rollback event, maintaining uninterrupted operation 24/7/365. This is not luck but a result of deliberate design choices.

Many newer high-performance blockchains have taken more direct routes—reducing node counts, raising hardware requirements, centralizing ordering and execution—to achieve extreme performance and user experience. But Ethereum has always asked a harder question: When the network scales larger, with more participants and a less friendly external environment, can this system still operate?

This also explains why Ethereum maintains long-term restraint on bandwidth testing, node operation costs, and hardware thresholds—even if it slows down some short-term performance indicators. Ethereum believes that a system that cannot be verified by an ordinary person essentially loses the meaning of “permissionless.”

In other words, Ethereum today may seem slow, not because it cannot be faster, but because it actively endures short-term discomfort for the sake of longer-term survival. The so-called “ten-year itch” is not degradation but resilience.

Clear Boundaries of Value: Alignment Is Not a Loyalty Test

Therefore, the first step in understanding Ethereum is to accept a somewhat unappealing but crucial fact: Ethereum’s core goal is not to run the fastest, but to be “trustworthy under the worst conditions.” This means many seemingly technical issues are fundamentally value choices: Should speed come at the expense of decentralization? Should strong permissions be introduced for nodes? Should security be entrusted to a few?

Ethereum’s answer is often “no.”

This also explains why the concept of “Alignment” (or “getting everyone on the same page”) can be controversial. Some worry it becomes a tool for moral coercion or power rent-seeking. These concerns are not unfounded. As early as September 2024, Vitalik Buterin explicitly pointed out this risk in “Making Ethereum alignment legible”:

If “alignment” means whether you have the right friends, then the concept itself has already failed.

His proposed solution is not to abandon alignment but to make it explainable, decomposable, and discussable. Alignment should be broken down into three scrutinizable dimensions:

Technical Alignment: Does the protocol use Ethereum’s security consensus? Does it advocate open source and open standards?

Economic Alignment: Does the ecosystem promote long-term value capture of ETH rather than one-way extraction?

Ideological Alignment: Does it pursue the public interest, not just predatory growth?

From this perspective, alignment is not a loyalty test but a social contract of mutual benefit and symbiosis. The Ethereum ecosystem allows chaos, competition, and even fierce rivalry among L2s; but ultimately, these activities should feed back into the core that provides security, consensus, and settlement.

Dual Pillars of Decentralization and Censorship Resistance

Supporting Ethereum’s value boundaries are two deep pillars: decentralization and censorship resistance.

First, in the context of Ethereum, “decentralization” does not mean more nodes are always better, nor that everyone must run a node. Instead, the system can operate normally without trusting any single participant. This means the protocol should not rely on a single proposer or coordinator, and node operation costs should not be so high that only professional institutions can afford them, ensuring ordinary users can still verify that the system is functioning according to rules.

This is why Ethereum maintains restraint on bandwidth demands, state bloat, and hardware investments. The apparent performance limitations are fundamentally about protecting the system’s verifiability and accessibility.

Another often-misunderstood value is censorship resistance. Ethereum does not assume the world is friendly. From its inception, it has preemptively accounted for participants seeking profit, power becoming concentrated, and external pressures emerging. Therefore, censorship resistance is not about “never being censored,” but about ensuring that even if someone attempts censorship, the system does not fail.

This is why mechanisms like proposer/builder separation, decentralized construction, and economic game design are so important—not because they are elegant, but because they enable continued operation under the worst-case scenarios.

Some may ask: “Do such extreme situations really happen in reality?” But the truth is, if a system is only safe in an ideal world, then it is not trustworthy in the real world.

A compelling data point: currently, the queue for exiting staked ETH on Ethereum’s PoS is nearly empty, while the queue for entering staking continues to grow, surpassing 1.57 million ETH. Despite controversy and skepticism, many ETH are still being locked long-term into this system—perhaps more telling than any declaration.

Why Conservative Choices Are the Most Radical Defense

Many critics say Ethereum is always “discussing philosophy after others have already started.”

But from another perspective, these very discussions have helped Ethereum avoid repeated rebuilds from scratch. Whether it’s the roadmap centered on Rollups, the gradual introduction of ZK proofs, or directions like interoperability, fast finality, and slot shortening, all these evolutions are based on a premise: All performance improvements must be compatible with existing safety and value assumptions.

This explains why Ethereum’s evolution often appears “conservative but steady.” Ultimately, it is not that Ethereum does not pursue efficiency, but that it refuses to trade current systemic risks for short-term gains.

And this is the underlying spirit that has supported Ethereum’s ecosystem for a decade— in an era dominated by “efficiency/TVL first,” Web3’s most scarce and precious asset is trustworthiness. While others are still debating who can run faster, Ethereum is answering the same question in every detail of bandwidth testing, cost control, and verifiability: What should a trustworthy system look like?