Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has written a lengthy blog post about the hazards of “stretching” Ethereum’s consensus beyond its fundamental functions of validating blocks and safeguarding the network. Ethereum consensus is the method by which blocks are validated using the proof-of-stake mechanism, which was established in September 2022 with “the Merge.” Buterin warned, in a May 21 blog post titled “Don’t overload Ethereum’s consensus,” that leveraging Ethereum’s network consensus for other purposes could pose “high systemic risks to the ecosystem and should be discouraged and resisted.” The Ethereum co-founder was essentially advocating for the blockchain’s minimalism to be preserved.