Gate 2025 Year-End Community Gala Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, in a statement on January 8, 2026, compared Ethereum's long-term goal to Linux and BitTorrent. According to Buterin, Ethereum must remain open and decentralized at its core, while also growing globally to gain the trust of businesses. Ethereum, which enables large-scale data distribution without central servers in a peer-to-peer network like BitTorrent, aims for similar success with its consensus mechanism. Even governments use BitTorrent for large files; this shows that decentralization is not an obstacle to real-world applications. Buterin emphasizes that Ethereum must pass the "walkaway test": the _ must function on its own without manual intervention. Scalability will be achieved with Layer 2 solutions, while the core will remain decentralized and reliable. This vision aims to transform Ethereum from a speculative asset into a global infrastructure. By combining decentralization with institutional trust, Ethereum can lay the foundation for