Vitalik Buterin warns Wall Street institutions of two major threats to Ethereum.

At Devconnect, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that Ethereum faces two risks if BlackRock and other large institutions continue to increase their Ethereum holdings: (1) builders with decentralized ideas could be squeezed out, weakening the community; and (2) institutionally optimized base layer choices (e.g., block times of around 150 ms) could prevent ordinary users from running nodes, thus driving geographical/network centralization. Currently, nine Wall Street firms offering Ethereum ETFs hold over $18 billion in Ether, with corporate treasuries holding an additional $18 billion. Buterin emphasized that Ethereum should focus on a “global, permissionless, and censorship-resistant protocol” to maintain its unique value.