Ethereum co-founder suggests new security approach
Vitalik Buterin views security differently these days. In a recent article, he floated the idea of using transaction simulations to make Ethereum wallets and smart contracts more secure. This is interesting because it no longer treats security as a separate technical issue.
He says security and user experience are actually the same thing: making sure the system does what the user actually wants. This is what he calls “user intent.” I think that’s a pretty simple way of looking at it, although perhaps a little simplistic.
How mock trades would work
The basic idea is that before confirming a transaction, you will see a simulation of what would actually happen on-chain. You would specify what you want to do, then see the consequences before clicking “OK” or “Cancel.” That seems… reasonable, right?
Buterin also mentioned other approaches, like spending limits and multisig approvals. The goal is to make low-risk things easier while making dangerous actions more difficult. Execution would only happen when everything aligned: user intent, expected outcome, and risk limits.
The complexity of defining intent
This is where it gets tricky. Buterin himself admits that defining user intent is “extremely complex.” There is no perfect security solution, and there may never be one. He suggests that good solutions involve users specifying their intent in multiple, overlapping ways, with the system only acting when those specifications align.
I’m not entirely convinced this solves everything, but it’s certainly a different angle. Most security discussions focus on technical vulnerabilities and not on understanding the system in relation to what you are trying to do.
Security in the blockchain trilemma
Security is part of Buterin’s blockchain trilemma concept, along with decentralization and scalability. The theory says that blockchains can optimize two aspects but must compromise on the third.
In recent years, the Ethereum ecosystem has focused more on decentralization and scalability, especially the latter. Ethereum’s mainnet struggles to scale compared to some competitors, so this is a priority. Maybe security hasn’t received enough attention, or maybe it’s just harder to make progress.
This idea of transaction simulation seems like an attempt to approach security from a different angle. Instead of just making systems harder to hack, it’s about helping them better understand what users actually want. This could prevent many errors and malicious transactions before they even happen.
But implementation will not be simple. How to accurately simulate complex smart contract interactions? How to clearly present this information to users? And how do you set intent in a way that is both flexible and secure?
It’s still worth thinking about. Most security breaches in cryptography are not aimed at breaking encryption or hacking nodes, but at misleading users or exploiting misunderstandings. If systems could better understand and verify user intentions, perhaps we would see fewer of these problems.
