Vitalik Buterin Plans Full Return to Decentralized Social by 2026

• Vitalik Buterin targets a full return to decentralized social media platforms in 2026.
• He criticizes token-based social platforms for rewarding influence over content quality.
• Shared social graphs and multi-client tools reduce reliance on single algorithms.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he will return fully to decentralized social media in 2026. He said competition, not engagement-maximising algorithms, should shape healthier online discourse.

On January 21, Buterin posted on X that society needs better mass communication tools. He said these tools should surface information, support agreement, and serve users’ long-term interests.

Decentralized Social Media Needs Real Competition

Buterin argued that today’s dominant platforms reward short-term engagement. He said those incentives can pull attention toward conflict and low-quality debate. However, he criticised engagement-maximising algorithms that concentrate attention in dominant interfaces. 

In addition, he said platforms should optimise for long-term user interests instead. Buterin said decentralization can unlock competition by reducing dependence on a single platform owner. Consequently, he described decentralization as a starting point for better communication. He said systems should help users find the best arguments and information. 

Moreover, he said tools should help people find points of agreement. Buterin said users should not depend on one interface to set the tone of discourse. Furthermore, he argued that user choice can improve information flow.

Related: Why Financial Institutions Are Building Settlement Systems on Ethereum

Shared Social Graph Could Power Multi-client Social Platforms

Buterin said that shared data layers can enable multiple clients to run on the same social graph. He argued that this structure can limit the power of any single interface. Client choice matters, he said, because clients compete on features and rankings. 

Furthermore, he said competition at the client level can improve online discourse over time. This setup, he said, gives users meaningful client choice.

Buterin described Firefly.social as one example of that approach. He said he uses the Firefly.social client to publish and read across multiple networks. Since the start of the year, every post he has written or read has gone through Firefly.social. Firefly.social supports X, Lens, Farcaster, and Bluesky, he said.

Still, he noted that Bluesky limits posts to 300 characters, while he continues to use the network. He suggested that decentralized social platforms can coexist with centralized platforms during a transition.

Meanwhile, he implied that better clients could gradually pull attention away from single-platform feeds. He expects progress, not overnight. Still, he also warned that a single global conversation space can become an “info warzone”. Consequently, he encouraged experimentation across decentralized social networks.

Tokenised Social Projects Often Miss The Point

Buterin criticised many crypto-native social projects for leaning on speculative tokens. He said teams often treat token launches as innovation instead of improving information flow. Money and social interaction can work together, he said. For example, he cited Substack as a system that supports high-quality content.

However, he said, problems appear when platforms create price bubbles around creators. He argued that these models can influence value itself, not the underlying content. Over the past decade, tokenised influence systems have repeated failures, he said. However, he argued that they often reward pre-existing social capital rather than quality.

Buterin said these efforts tend to collapse as tokens “trend toward zero,” after early hype fades. Consequently, he said, token incentives do not solve the core social problem. He rejected claims that new markets automatically improve society. In addition, he called that view “galaxy-brained” rhetoric.

Buterin wrote that it was “not Hayekian info-utopia”. He added that it was “corposlop”. Buterin said decentralized social networks need teams that care about social outcomes. He praised the Aave team’s stewardship of Lens and said he feels optimistic about Lens’s next phase.

Meanwhile, he pointed to an incoming team he described as focused on encrypted social communication. In addition, he said he plans to post more actively on Lens this year. He encouraged users to spend more time across Lens, Farcaster, and the broader decentralized social ecosystem. In addition, he said this activity can help move beyond a single “global info warzone”.

Looking ahead, Buterin’s 2026 plan signals a deeper personal focus on decentralized social media. He said client-level competition, not speculative tokens, will guide that effort.