Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the objective of “security” is to minimize the divergence between a user’s intent and a system’s actual behavior, implying that perfect protection is not realistically attainable.
How I think about "security":
The goal is to minimize the divergence between the user's intent, and the actual behavior of the system.
"User experience" can also be defined in this way. Thus, "user experience" and "security" are thus not separate fields. However, "security"…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 22, 2026
In his framing, most losses are not just “bad code” events but alignment failures across wallets, dApps, and tooling, where humans operate on context while software executes rigid rules. He pointed to privacy as a parallel risk surface: even with encryption, metadata patterns like timing and who talks to whom can still leak meaningful information. He argued that better outcomes come from redundancy, using overlapping confirmations such as transaction simulations, multisig setups, spending limits, and social recovery so the system acts only when signals line up.
Buterin also cautioned that security is not synonymous with adding friction: low-risk actions should stay easy, while dangerous moves should trigger stronger controls. Stakeholders will be watching whether product teams translate this “intent gap” thesis into concrete wallet features and safer default workflows over the coming releases.
Source: Vitalik Buterin (X).
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