Vitalik: The core of blockchain is verifiability and highly democratized participation

Celestia co-creator Nick White said in a social media post that the core of blockchain is verifiability, which is designed to get us rid of committees and intermediaries. A more decentralized committee is still a committee.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on social media, "If Ethereum abandons verifiability and accepts committees and centralized intermediaries as the solution to everything, I would consider it no longer Ethereum."
In addition to verifiability, I would also add highly democratized participation.