Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum protocol development should introduce explicit simplification and garbage collection mechanisms.

Vitalik Buterin, in an article published on the X platform, stated that protocol simplicity is crucial for trustlessness, passing escapism tests, and autonomy. Even with extremely high decentralization, a protocol bloated with hundreds of thousands of lines of code or complex cryptography will ultimately fail. Buterin's concern regarding Ethereum protocol development lies in the fact that excessively adding new features to meet specific needs can compromise long-term autonomy. To address the issue of backward compatibility causing protocol bloat over time, the Ethereum development process needs explicit simplification and garbage collection mechanisms. Simplification standards include minimizing lines of code, avoiding unnecessary dependencies on complex technical components, and adding more invariants. Garbage collection can be implemented piecemeal or on a large scale, such as replacing PoW with PoS, or using Rosetta-style backward compatibility to downgrade low-frequency complex functions to smart contract code. Buterin hopes that the pace of Ethereum's evolution will slow down in the long run and strives to prevent useless parts from becoming a permanent drag on the protocol.