Ethereum's protocol should be as modular and separable as possible. An overarching  goal is to create a program where if one was to make a small protocol modification in one place, the application stack can continue to function without any further modification.

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There are five main design pillars that Ethereum bases it self upon. 

Ethereum's Design 

Buterin, Vitalik. (2013). A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized  

Application Platform. https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/


Ethereum Whitepaper

the purpose of Ethereum is to be as simple as possible. Even if this simplicity comes with the cost of data storage or inefficiency. Any optimization that adds complications should not be included unless that it provides a large benefit in return.

Ethereum's first pillar of design  

A fundamental part of Ethereum's design philosophy is that Ethereum does not have "features". Instead, Ethereum has internal Turing-complete scripting language. This can be used by a programmer  to construct any smart contract or transaction type that is able to be mathematically defined. These features allow for Ethereum to be as universal as possible.

Ethereum's second pillar of design

Ethereum's third pillar of design

Maintaining agility is key to Ethereum working to its highest level. Ethereum states, "computational tests later on in the development process may lead us to discover that certain modifications, e.g. to the protocol architecture or to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), will substantially improve scalability or security. If any such opportunities are found, we will exploit them." 


Ethereum's fourth pillar of design

Ethereum is not based upon morals or ethics. Ethereum should not attempt to restrict or prevent specific categories of usage, no matter the content. All regulatory mechanisms in the protocol should be designed to directly regulate the harm and not attempt to oppose specific undesirable applications.

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