Buterin stated that 2026 should be a pivotal year for restoring user control over data and computing. He noted that he has recently made a conscious shift to more private and decentralized tools—from maps and email to messengers and social platforms—reducing his dependence on centralized services.
Local LLM models and privacy technologies have already made significant progress, but still suffer from poor integration and a lack of user-friendly UX. He emphasized that the mass transfer of data to third parties is no longer a necessity, and that the further development of local models, encryption, and private computing should become a priority for the industry.
