The price of convenience

i remember the first time i heard vitalik talk about trustlessness. it wasn’t some big flashy speech or anything. just him talking, kind of quietly, about how systems should work without needing to rely on people’s promises. at the time i didn’t really get it. it sounded a bit cold, almost robotic. but now, years later, it makes sense in a way i didn’t expect. it wasn’t about cutting people out. it was about building something that doesn’t collapse when someone messes up or gets greedy.

the word “trustless” used to sound like a tech buzzword. now it feels more like a test. because honestly, most of what we call “decentralized” still depends on a few big companies. aws, google cloud, whatever. it’s kind of funny how the space that started to escape control slowly found itself right back in the same cage, just with shinier bars. somewhere along the way we started caring more about speed and fees than about freedom and resilience.

so vitalik wrote this paper, the trustless manifesto. it’s short and not technical, but it hits you. he basically says if your chain breaks when one company’s server stops, then you were never trustless to begin with. and he’s right. when aws went down recently, coinbase’s base chain slowed down by something like 25 percent. suddenly, the word trustless didn’t sound so strong anymore. it sounded like marketing. meanwhile, arbitrum and optimism kept running fine. they planned ahead, using multiple providers and independent validators. not glamorous stuff, but that’s the real backbone of decentralization.

what’s weird is how familiar all of this feels. it’s the same pattern we saw with the early internet. it started open and idealistic, then slowly became controlled by platforms and comfort. people like safety, even if it means losing a little freedom. but blockchains were supposed to be our way out of that loop. now, we’re drifting back toward it without even noticing. we say “trust the code,” but half the time we’re trusting clouds instead.

vitalik’s tone in the manifesto isn’t angry. it’s more tired, like he’s seen this story repeat too many times. ideals get big, then come money, then centralization. it’s almost predictable. he’s reminding everyone that trustlessness isn’t about perfection or efficiency. it’s about independence. about systems that don’t ask you to believe, only to verify. that’s a subtle difference but it’s everything.

the funny part is how we keep saying decentralization is hard, but that’s kind of the point. the moment we start chasing convenience too much, we give up what made crypto special. when aws offers smoother apis or faster nodes, everyone moves there because it’s easy. and every time that happens, we lose a bit more control. it doesn’t feel dangerous at first. but when something breaks, no one knows who actually runs what anymore.

the manifesto isn’t saying stop building or stop scaling. it’s more like, remember why this all started. ask the hard questions again. who can shut this off? who holds the keys? who do we trust, even when we say we don’t? those questions make people uncomfortable, but that’s good. that’s what keeps the space honest.

maybe trustlessness isn’t a thing you build once and forget about. maybe it’s something you defend every single day. because it’s easier to drift toward comfort than to stay free. and once you start depending on the same few systems again, the word trustless doesn’t mean much anymore. it’s just a sticker.

but if there’s one thing this whole journey has shown, it’s that trustlessness isn’t about hating control. it’s about designing systems that don’t need to be trusted at all. that’s a quiet kind of freedom. not loud or shiny, but real. and maybe that’s enough for now.