Vitalik Buterin Highlights Three Apps Preserving Ethereum's Decentralized Vision

Judging from his recent activity on social media, Vitalik Buterin had something big atop his list of New Year’s resolutions: remind everyone why he co-founded Ethereum. The itinerant software engineer has spent the past several weeks posting missives about the importanceofdecentralisation, prompting debates in the broader crypto community over the proper focus of an industry still trying to find mainstream appeal beyond speculative frenzy. Buterin’s latest came earlier this week, when he listed three applications that have been built with an eye toward the ideals that motivated him to build Ethereum. Even more impressive? They work, Buterin said. “In 2014, decentralised applications were toys, hundreds of times more difficult to use [than] web2,” he wrote on X. “In 2026, Fileverse is now usable enough that I regularly write documents in it and send them to other people to collaborate,” he added, referring to one of the apps. When he began working on Ethereum in 2014, Buterin envisioned a platform that could support all manner of apps: finance, social media, ride sharing, governing organisations, and crowdfunding. Ultimately, one could “potentially create an entire alternative web, all on the backs of a suite of technologies,” Buterin wrote. As Ethereum becomes faster and cheaper and as other projects mature, that vision is becoming a reality, he said. Status is a self-custody crypto wallet with a built-in, encrypted messaging app, and Railway Wallet bills itself as a “private DeFi wallet.” Filverse is a decentralised, encrypted alternative to Google Workspace, offering software in the mould of Google Docs and Google Sheets. “Fileverse is an excellent example of the right way to do things,” Buterin wrote. “Even if Fileverse disappears, you can still retrieve [the documents] and even keep editing them with the open source UI.” Buterin contrasted such technology with examples of mass market consumer tech that has become increasingly complicated, expensive, or invasive, such as air fryers that appear to track their owners’ social media activity through a connected smartphone app or a dishwasher that requires an annual subscription to unlock all its features. “All of the prerequisites for the original web3 vision are here, in full force, and are continuing to get stronger over the next few years,” Buterin wrote. “The decentralized renaissance is coming, and you can be part of making it happen.” Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.