TLDR:

• Buterin defines security as minimizing divergence between user intent and actual system behavior at all times.
  
• Perfect security is impossible because human intent is too complex to capture in any single mathematical definition.
  
• Good security systems rely on redundant, overlapping specifications that approach user intent from multiple distinct angles.
  
• LLMs can approximate user intent as one layer of security but should never act as the sole decision-making authority.

Security, as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sees it, is not about adding more steps to a process. It is about minimizing the gap between what a user intends and what a system actually does.

Buterin shared this perspective in a detailed post on X, connecting security directly to user experience. His framework draws on type systems, formal verification, and even large language models as tools to close that gap.

Security and User Experience Share the Same Definition

Buterin argues that security and user experience are not separate disciplines. Both aim to reduce the divergence between user intent and system behavior.

The only real difference is that security focuses on tail-risk situations — cases where divergence carries a large downside.

These tail-risk situations become more dangerous when adversarial behavior is involved. A bad actor can exploit any gap between what the user intended and what the system executed. That gap, however small, becomes the attack surface.

Buterin wrote, “Perfect security is impossible. Not because machines are flawed, or even because humans designing them are flawed, but because the user’s intent is fundamentally a complex object.” This framing shifts responsibility from pure engineering toward understanding human cognition itself.

The Problem of Representing Intent in Mathematical Terms

A straightforward goal like sending one ETH to a contact named Bob already carries hidden complexity. Representing Bob as a public key or hash introduces the risk that the key does not actually correspond to Bob. Even the definition of ETH becomes contested in the event of a hard fork.

More abstract goals make the problem even harder. Preserving a user’s privacy, for instance, goes well beyond encrypting messages.

Metadata patterns, message timing, and communication graphs can leak substantial information even when content is fully encrypted.

Buterin draws a direct comparison to early work in AI alignment, noting that robustly specifying goals is one of the hardest parts of the problem. The challenge of defining user intent in security is structurally identical to that challenge.

Redundant Specifications as the Core Design Principle

Buterin’s proposed solution centers on redundancy. Good security systems ask users to specify their intent in multiple overlapping ways, and only act when those specifications align. This pattern appears across many existing tools.

Type systems in programming require a developer to describe both what the code does and what shape the data takes at each step.

Formal verification adds mathematical properties on top of that. Transaction simulations ask users to review expected outcomes before confirming an action.

Post-assertions, multisig setups, spending limits, and new-address confirmations all follow this same structure. Each layer approaches intent from a different angle — action, expected effect, risk level, and economic bound. Together, they reduce divergence without any single layer being foolproof.

How Large Language Models Fit Into This Framework

Buterin also addresses the role of LLMs within this redundancy model. A general-purpose LLM functions as an approximation of human common sense. A fine-tuned model can serve as a closer approximation of a specific user’s normal behavior patterns.

That said, Buterin is clear that LLMs should never serve as the sole determinant of intent. Their value comes from the angle they offer — one that is structurally different from traditional, rule-based specifications. That difference increases the practical value of the redundancy.

The broader takeaway is straightforward. Security should make low-risk actions easy and high-risk actions harder to complete. Getting that balance right, rather than adding friction across the board, is the actual engineering challenge.

Binance controls nearly a third of exchange-held supply, underscoring how liquidity power is concentrating among a few venues.

Nearly 3 million Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $200 billion and representing 15% of the circulating supply, currently sits on centralized exchange platforms.

The concentration of assets on trading venues reveals that, despite the shock of the FTX collapse in 2022 and years of industry messaging around self-custody, about one out of every six BTC in existence remains stored with third-party intermediaries.

Binance Dominates

Data shared by crypto analyst Darkfost shows that centralized exchange reserves have climbed alongside the expansion of trading services.

Platforms now offer yield generation, collateralized derivative products, and lending solutions, all of which require maintaining significant Bitcoin reserves to meet user liquidity needs. The result is that approximately 3 million BTC now sits on exchanges, with the distribution heavily skewed toward market leaders.

According to the on-chain observer, Binance holds the largest share, controlling around 30% of all Bitcoin stored on centralized platforms. Bitfinex follows with almost 20% of reserves, while Robinhood and South Korea’s Upbit each account for about 8.2%. Kraken, OKX, and Gemini round out the top tier with holdings between 5% and 7%, respectively.

The concentration becomes even more pronounced when examining absolute figures. Per data from CoinGlass, Coinbase Pro currently holds approximately 792,000 BTC, making it the single largest exchange holder despite its smaller percentage of the CEX-specific ranking. Binance follows with nearly 662,000 BTC, while Bitfinex holds roughly 430,000 BTC.

“The liquidity depth, fast order execution, and access to additional services such as lending and staking contribute to maintaining a significant share of Bitcoin’s circulating supply within these centralized infrastructures,” Darkfost noted in their analysis.

This observation matches up with trading volume data showing continued activity concentration, with a CryptoQuant report from earlier in the year showing that Binance captured over 40% of spot and Bitcoin perpetual volumes across major global exchanges in 2025. The platform also processed $25.4 trillion in Bitcoin perpetual futures alone.

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Market Structure Shifts Despite Persistent Exchange Holdings

The $200 billion held on exchanges represents a complex market dynamic because, while total exchange reserves are substantial, the past month has seen mixed movements across platforms.

CoinGlass data shows overall exchange balances increased by some 16,990 BTC over the past 30 days, but individual platform trends diverged significantly. For example, Binance added more than 22,000 BTC during that period, while OKX and Bithumb recorded outflows exceeding 2,700 BTC and 3,600 BTC, respectively. Gemini saw the largest 30-day decline, with balances dropping by almost 13,900 BTC.

These movements are happening against a backdrop of evolving exchange business models and regulatory positioning. Kraken confidentially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2025, following an $800 million funding round that valued the exchange at $20 billion.

Meanwhile, Robinhood, which holds approximately 8.2% of exchange BTC reserves, recently launched the public testnet for Robinhood Chain in February 2026, an Ethereum Layer 2 network built on Arbitrum designed to accelerate development of tokenized assets.

Gold is on the verge of an unprecedented eighth consecutive monthly gain, a streak that would mark the longest in its history. However, several headwinds are threatening to interrupt the rally.

While investors have flocked to the safe-haven metal amid macroeconomic uncertainty, market strategists warn that the run-up may be reaching a critical juncture.

Gold’s Historic Rally Faces Unprecedented Risks

Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, warns that financial markets feel increasingly fraught, with the elements for a meaningful selloff coming into place.

This threat, he says, is highest for stocks and corporate bonds, but even crypto, gold, and silver remain at risk despite recent pullbacks.

“Valuations are high…investors are simply investing on the faith that prices will rise quickly in the future because they have in the recent past,” Zandi stated.

The economist points to mixed economic fundamentals as a source of tension. US real GDP is growing just over 2%, below the economy’s potential of roughly 2.5%. Meanwhile, employment has flatlined, and unemployment continues creeping higher.

Inflation, measured by the Fed’s preferred consumer expenditure deflator, remains stubbornly and uncomfortably high at 3%.

Meanwhile, renewed tariff chaos and the looming threat of conflict with Iran provide little upside for risk assets.

The Treasury market adds another layer of uncertainty. Zandi warns that leveraged hedge funds have stepped into a fragile market left by a retreating Federal Reserve and global investors.

“It’s not hard to imagine them running for the proverbial door all at once, and interest rates spike,” he said.

Massive budget deficits and questions about the safe-haven status of Treasuries in a de-globalizing world exacerbate the risk.

Despite these headwinds, gold continues to attract investors as a durable store of value. Data from Kalshi shows the metal on track for its eighth straight green month.

Meanwhile, Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett advises trading oil for short-term geopolitical gains but “owning gold” for longer-term safety.

Central banks now hold more gold than US Treasuries in reserves for the first time since 1996, reflecting their role as a hedge against fiat currency risk.

China’s Gold Shortage Sparks Supply Crunch Amid Historic Rally

China’s post-Chinese New Year gold shortage is also adding bullish momentum, though it comes with its own risks.

Reports indicate that many gold shops halted bar sales and refunded pre-holiday contracts due to severe supply constraints.

Just after Chinese New Year, many gold shops stopped selling gold bars. All contracts signed before the holiday are been refunding. The gold shortage is extremely severe. $10,000/oz will be coming. pic.twitter.com/5o9ztz7dQe

— Bai, Xiaojun (@oriental_ghost) February 22, 2026

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Analysts suggest this could push gold toward $10,000 per ounce in extreme scenarios, though abrupt market reactions may trigger short-term corrections.

“Extremely severe gold shortage to Send Gold to $10,000/oz soon!” Silver Trade noted.

Technical analysts remain cautious as well. Rashad Hajiyev notes resistance near $5,160. Meanwhile, FXGold Analyst highlights the critical $5,100 gap, suggesting that opening below this level could favor sellers and limit buying momentum.

In sum, while gold’s historic streak remains intact for now, investors face a delicate balancing act between soaring demand, geopolitical uncertainty, fragile markets, and key technical levels.

The combination of these factors means that the metal’s next moves may be as volatile as they are historic.

Ethereum remains in a broader corrective phase, trading below key moving averages and inside a well-defined descending structure. While short-term stabilization is visible near support, the higher-timeframe trend still favors sellers unless major resistance levels are reclaimed with strong momentum.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, ETH continues to respect a descending channel, consistently forming lower highs beneath both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The recent breakdown accelerated the price into the $1,750–$1,800 demand zone, where buyers have stepped in to slow the decline, but the structure remains bearish overall.

The $2,300–$2,400 region now acts as a key resistance cluster, aligning with prior breakdown levels and just below the declining 100-day moving average. Unless ETH can reclaim that zone and break above the channel’s upper boundary, rallies are likely to be corrective, with the risk of another leg toward lower channel support still present.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

On the 4H timeframe, the asset has been compressing inside a symmetrical triangle formed from recent lower highs and higher lows, above the $1,800 horizontal support zone. This short-term symmetrical contraction reflects indecision rather than confirmed reversal, as lower highs are still being printed.

A breakout above $2,000–$2,100 highs would be the first signal of a short-term momentum shift and could open a move toward the $2,300-$2,400 resistance band. Conversely, losing the $1,800 base would invalidate the consolidation thesis and likely trigger renewed downside pressure toward deeper support levels.

On-Chain Analysis

Active address data shows a sharp spike in network activity recently, with the 30-day EMA of active addresses surging to multi-month highs. Historically, similar expansions in activity have coincided with periods of heightened volatility and often precede major directional moves.

However, despite the spike in participation, the asset has not yet confirmed a bullish reversal. This divergence suggests that while engagement is rising, capital flows are not decisively pushing prices higher, and might be indicating panic selling at lows by weaker hands. If elevated activity sustains while the price stabilizes, it could form a constructive base. However, a confirmation would require a clear break above key technical resistance levels.

Disagreements within a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) are a sign of a healthy DAO, according to Dr. Michael Egorov, founder of the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Curve Finance.

DAOs are a decentralized organizational structure that relies on smart contracts to automate functions and member voting to govern onchain protocols.

Egorov said that both a 2024 governance proposal involving the Curve DAO and the recent dispute involving the Aave DAO illustrate the importance of disagreements to the structure’s vitality. He told Cointelegraph:

“If everyone automatically agrees on something, it feels like people just don’t really care. They vote for whatever comes in, or they don’t participate at all. The first sign of that would be governance apathy, like when people are not voting at all.”

That earlier Curve DAO matter concerned a 2024 governance proposal to provide Swiss Stake AG, the main developer behind the Curve Finance protocol, with a grant valued at about $6.3 million at the time, which drew significant pushback from members of the Curve DAO.

Egorov noted that the proposal was revised and resubmitted in December 2025, and the redrafted proposal received over 80% turnout from DAO members.

An analysis last year by blockchain development company LamprosTech found that “Voter turnout in most DAOs rarely passes 15%, concentrating decision-making power in the hands of a small, active group.”

Curve token holders lock up their tokens for a long period, which encourages long-term governance engagement, Egorov said.

Egorov said that DAOs represent a new model for human organization that is distinct from a company or a self-sovereign country, but features elements of a sovereign country, including political parties voicing disagreement about how to govern a protocol.

Related: Core technical contributor to cease involvement with Aave DAO

Aave dispute highlights challenges in onchain governance and intellectual property rights 

In December 2025, a governance dispute erupted between Aave Labs, the main development company of Aave products, and the Aave DAO over fees from the integration with DeFi exchange aggregator CoW Swap.

Members of the DAO were critical of the fees from the integration going directly to a wallet controlled by Aave Labs, and the pushback sparked a debate over which entity has rightful control over intellectual property on the DeFi platform.

A proposal was then submitted to the Aave DAO to bring Aave brand assets and intellectual property under the control of the DAO; it ultimately failed to pass.

Legal recognition of DAOs could mitigate governance disputes

DAOs cannot interact with the real world without regulated legal structures, like business entities or bank accounts, and DAO control over intellectual property is a common governance issue, Egorov said.

DAOs are a great fit for governing anything onchain, he said, adding that users should also experiment with DAOs for offchain elements as well, though centralized companies might be a better fit to manage offchain structures.

If DAOs could be legally recognized and interact with the traditional financial world, owning business entities and bank accounts, it could mitigate governance disputes, Egorov said, adding that the legal system has yet to catch up to the latest technology.

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