Ethereum Co-Founder Warns Closed Systems Breed ‘Abuse and Monopolies,’ Calls for Open-Source in Key Sectors

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has issued a comprehensive warning about the dangers of closed technological systems, arguing that proprietary infrastructure across health, digital identity, and civic technology creates conditions for “ abuse and monopolies ” while concentrating power among a few ￰1￱ a September 24 blog post , Buterin outlined his vision for “full-stack openness and verifiability” spanning software, hardware, and biological ￰2￱ argued that civilizations that produce open technology rather than merely consume it will dominate the 21st ￰3￱ importance of full-stack openness and verifiability (including applications, operating systems, hardware, and bio) ￰0￱ — ￰4￱ (@VitalikButerin) September 24, 2025 The warning comes as Buterin advocates for stronger “copyleft” licensing , which requires developers who build on open-source code to share their ￰5￱ supporting permissive licenses, he now believes the crypto industry has become “ more competitive and mercenary ,” making voluntary code sharing ￰6￱ call extends beyond software to hardware verification, biological monitoring systems, and civic ￰7￱ envisions a world where personal devices offer smartphone functionality with crypto wallet security while remaining as inspectable as mechanical ￰8￱ Ethereum Foundation has backed this philosophy with a recent $500,000 donation to support Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s legal defense, while the Solana Policy Institute also contributed an additional $500,000.

Both organizations argue that prosecuting privacy tool developers sets dangerous precedents for criminalizing open-source ￰9￱ Infrastructure Threatens Individual Sovereignty Buterin identified health technology as a critical battleground where proprietary systems could entrench global ￰10￱ to the blog post, the COVID vaccine distribution exposed these risks when production was concentrated in a few countries, resulting in massive disparities between wealthy and developing nations.