Buterin advocates for transaction simulation in crypto wallets for better security.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for the integration of transaction simulation mechanisms into crypto wallets and smart contracts to enhance their security and user-friendliness.
“The goal of security is to minimize the divergence between what the user wants to do (their intention) and what the system actually does. ‘User experience’ can be defined in the same way. Therefore, these are not separate fields,” he wrote.
Buterin suggests that security architecture should be built around user intentions — creating systems that double-check their actions. This applies not only to Ethereum wallets and smart contracts but also to operating systems and hardware.
“The user first indicates what they want to do, and after viewing a simulation of the on-chain consequences, they press ‘OK’ or ‘Cancel’,” Buterin explained.
Other options include spending limits and multisignatures. A transaction proceeds only if three factors align: intention, expected outcome, and acceptable risk level. The result should be logical: safe actions are simplified to the point of automation, while risky ones require additional checks.
Implementation Challenges
The main challenge lies in accurately recognizing user intentions — a task Buterin described as “extremely difficult.” This is why there are no “perfect” security solutions.
“[…] Absolute security is impossible. Not because machines or people are ‘imperfect’, but because the ‘user’s intention’ itself is a fundamentally complex object that the user does not have easy access to,” he noted.
According to him, an effective solution should rely on the principle of redundancy: the user expresses their intentions in several overlapping ways, and the system activates only when they coincide.
As an additional filter of intentions, LLM can be used, Buterin added. He believes that when applied correctly, neural networks can simulate human logic:
“A typical LLM is (among other things) like a ‘shadow’ of the concept of human common sense. A model fine-tuned on a specific user becomes a ‘shadow’ of that user and can more subtly determine what is normal and what is not.”
Earlier, Ethereum’s co-founder discussed the potential process of merging the ecosystem with artificial intelligence.
