Vitalik Buterin introduced the “walk-away test” as a benchmark for evaluating decentralization, asking whether users would retain access to their digital assets if a crypto company and its infrastructure ceased to exist.

Date

July 2, 2025

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To help the community assess whether a system is genuinely decentralized, Buterin introduced three practical tests. First, the walk-away test, where the question of the possibility of users retaining access to their assets if a project’s developers vanish, its servers go offline, has to be answered.Next, the insider attack test: How much damage could a corrupt insider cause? Lastly, the trusted computing base test: How much code must be trusted for security to hold?

In his typical jeans and relaxed dark T-shirt uniform, Buterin laid out practical “tests” that he said every crypto project should pass. These include 1) the walk-away test. If the company behind an application disappears, do users keep their assets? And 2) the insider attack test: How much damage can rogue insiders or compromised front-ends cause? And 3) whether it has a trusted computing base: How many lines of code must be trusted to protect users’ funds or data?

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Week 27 of 2025