Vitalik Buterin: Overcomplexity is eroding the "trust-free" cornerstone of blockchain

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, said that the Ethereum blockchain needs to better explain its features to users in order to achieve true "trust-free", which is a common challenge for all blockchain protocols.
"Trustless" means that the protocol does not require developer supervision and only enforces rules automatically through code. However, if the protocol is so complex that only a few people can participate in its operation, then in practice, others still have to trust the group.
Ethereum itself is already trust-free because transactions and smart contracts are executed by open-source code and a decentralized network of validators. But Buterin pointed out in an X tweet on Wednesday that the network still needs to improve user understanding.
An important but underrated form of trust-free is to increase the number of people who can truly understand the entire protocol from top to bottom. Ethereum needs to do better in this regard by simplifying the protocol.
When asked about the practicality of this scenario, given the trade-off between technical features and user understanding, Buterin said: We should be willing to reduce some functionality at some point.