Rethinking Decentralization: Key Challenges of Ethereum

Decentralization has always been the core concept of blockchain technology, but how to truly achieve this goal remains a significant challenge faced by the industry. Recently, the founder of Ethereum proposed a thought-provoking point at a conference in France: if Ethereum cannot achieve true decentralization, its future may face a survival crisis.

To assess the degree of decentralization of a protocol, he proposed three key testing criteria: exit testing, internal attack testing, and trusted computing base testing. Among these, exit testing is considered the most fundamental and important part.

The core issue of exiting the test is: can users still safely withdraw assets and complete interactions when the project team is completely unreachable? This test is actually examining whether a protocol truly achieves "Decentralization". It does not focus on the integrity of daily functions but instead centers on the autonomy of users' assets in extreme situations.

As early as 2022, this founder criticized most Rollup projects for over-relying on centralized operations and human intervention to ensure security. Some industry evaluation frameworks also reflect this issue by categorizing Rollup projects into different stages of decentralization to show their level of dependence on human intervention.

For current mainstream Rollup projects, although most have mechanisms such as "escape pods", they still retain upgradable contracts or super administrator privileges. These mechanisms, which seem to be designed for emergencies, may actually become potential risk windows. For example, the team may control contract changes through multi-signature, and even if they claim to be immutable on the surface, as long as there is a backdoor, user assets could be at risk.

A true exit test requires the complete elimination of dependence on the project party, ensuring that users can operate independently and control their assets in any situation. This is not only about censorship resistance but also fundamentally guarantees the sovereignty of user assets.

From a broader perspective, the exit test reflects the core value proposition of the Web3 domain. For new users and institutional investors, the ability to withdraw assets at any time is their primary consideration for entering this space. This is also a practical test of the idea that "not your keys, not your coins."

In the Web3 ecosystem, the idea of exit testing has already been practiced in certain areas. For example, mainstream Web3 wallets often allow users to export their private keys or mnemonic phrases, enabling users to easily transfer their assets to other wallets or devices. This design is essentially an "exit mechanism" that ensures users can have complete control over their funds without needing to trust the wallet provider.

The three core tests proposed by the founder of Ethereum actually form a complete evaluation system, aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainable development of blockchain systems. In addition to the exit test, the internal attack test focuses on whether the system can withstand malicious actions from developers internally, while the trusted computing base test evaluates whether the amount of code that users need to trust is sufficiently small and auditable.

These tests collectively embody the concept of "trustless trust" pursued by the Web3 world. In this world, trust arises from verifiability. Through transparent mathematics and algorithms, users can verify the operation of the system at any time without having to rely on the ethical integrity of the project team.

If Ethereum cannot achieve this level of decentralization, it may ultimately become a fleeting memory for a generation, much like many once-glorious technologies that have been forgotten. Therefore, achieving true decentralization is not only a technical challenge but also a key to the future development of Ethereum and the entire blockchain industry.