Updating an ENS name without opening a single interface: that is the experience Vitalik Buterin described on October 6, 2026, in Singapore, on the OKX NOW stage. According to the Journal du Coin's report, the Ethereum co-founder handed the operation to an AI agent running on his own machine, and drew a thesis from it: AI would become the gateway to the blockchain. It remains to distinguish what was demonstrated, declared or projected.
The demonstration: a local agent instead of the interface
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) works like a directory: it links a readable name to an address on the blockchain. Usually, it is managed from a web application, with its menus and signatures to approve. Vitalik Buterin did without it. "About a month ago, I updated my ENS for the first time without any traditional interface," he explained, according to the transcript published by ChainCatcher and picked up by the Journal du Coin.
In practice, an AI agent running locally wrote the necessary script for him. The operation took about five minutes. The principle described is simple: the user states what they want to achieve, the agent chooses the operations to carry out and sends them to the blockchain. No more menus or buttons, but an intention translated into transactions.
The declaration: "AI will become the new UI"
From this experience, Vitalik Buterin draws a formula: "more and more often, AI will become the new UI," in other words the new user interface. This is a statement of intent and a personal reading of how things are evolving, not a measured finding.
His remarks were quickly summed up elsewhere as "the end of applications." Yet the Journal du Coin points out that the phrase "applications will disappear" does not appear in the transcript. Cryptobriefing, which covered the same event, notes for its part a conditional: traditional onchain applications "could decline." The nuance is not trivial. A possible decline is not an announced disappearance.
The perspective: a two-year horizon, without figures
For the next two years, Vitalik Buterin describes a network capable of handling a large number of transactions, with costs "much lower than today" and better privacy. He adds two observations. In a trade today, the counterparty is probably already a bot, and this will become increasingly common. And in two years, "even the application itself could be written by bots."
This projection remains a perspective. According to the Journal du Coin, none of the reports consulted puts a figure on it: neither the share of applications affected nor the expected transaction volume. The outlet places the target in fall 2028 and notes that, until then, the forecast remains in the conditional.
An agent that signs transactions: the risk shifts
Vitalik Buterin did not present only the favorable side. He recalled the attack on Safe, one of the largest crypto wallets, which resulted in losses of about $1.4 billion. According to Cryptobriefing, the target was the user interaction layer, the weak point of current interfaces.
Replacing this interface with an agent does not eliminate the risk: it shifts it. Vitalik Buterin himself raises the question of prompt injection, that is, a malicious instruction hidden in content the agent reads that hijacks its mission. Cryptobriefing cites two other dangers mentioned: the erosion of privacy as AI handles more activity, and the compromise of an agent that signs transactions.
As a general analysis, the problem stems from the fact that the agent combines two roles: it reads content that can come from anywhere and it holds the power to sign. Any flaw in the way it interprets an instruction can therefore turn into a real transaction, in principle irreversible on a blockchain.
Vitalik Buterin's answer goes all the way down to the hardware, with a formula: "Not your silicon, not your keys." Without control over the chip that runs the agent, the private key belongs to its holder only in theory. He is also betting on zero-knowledge proofs, which make it possible to prove a fact without revealing all the information. The Journal du Coin sees this as a line consistent with his recent positions: securing code through AI and formal verification, and restraining AI's autonomy even at the cost of efficiency.
Standards in preparation and the link to Zug
The groundwork is also being laid on the standards side. ERC-8004, titled "Trustless Agents," is still at the draft stage. It provides for three onchain registries dedicated to the identity, reputation and validation of autonomous agents. Its authors come from MetaMask, the Ethereum Foundation, Google and Coinbase.
For Switzerland, the subject is not distant: the Ethereum Foundation, which is among the organizations behind this draft, is based in Zug. Still, the question of prompt injection is one Vitalik Buterin himself left open.
