Vitalik Buterin Opens Up About Ethereum Plans For Web3

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin took to Twitter this week to air a series of contradictions he sees between the direction of the network he created and his personal beliefs and values.

In the lengthy thread posted on May 17, Buterin discussed issues he characterises as “open contradictions in his thoughts and values” that revolve around Ethereum’s stability and security and its cultural and political impact.

Admiration for Bitcoin’s Stability

Buterin’s first point highlighted his admiration for Bitcoin, in particular its long-term stability, saying he’d like to see Ethereum attain a similar level of stability. To do so, however, would require significant short-term change and instability – something Buterin rightly sees as a contradiction:

Contradiction between my desire to see Ethereum become a more Bitcoin-like system emphasizing long-term stability and stability, including culturally, and my realization that getting there requires quite a lot of active coordinated short-term change.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Buterin Airs Views on Security, Decentralisation and Democracy

Buterin mused on the tensions between his personal beliefs and core crypto values such as decentralisation, security, and networks’ independence from specific individuals.

While expressing his love for decentralisation and democracy, he said that on a personal level he often finds himself siding with the views of intellectual elites over the opinion of the masses. 

And while his preference for Ethereum is to reduce reliance on individuals and build “fixed systems that can stand the test of time”, Buterin also admitted his appreciation for people he describes as “live players”, those who make change happen.

Contradiction between my preference for reducing reliance on individuals and trying to build fixed systems that can stand the test of time and my appreciation of “live players” and their role in helping the world move forward.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

He also described a contradiction between his goal to make Ethereum a highly secure layer 1 network that can survive “truly extreme circumstances” and his knowledge that many important apps currently running on the network have far weaker security than he would ever deem appropriate for Ethereum itself.

Grudging Acknowledgement of NFT Craze

Buterin confessed his dislike of the NFT “art” craze exemplified by Bored Ape Yacht Club, but acknowledged such collections have played a role in funding some of the more interesting DAO and decentralised governance experiments. An example he cited was the AssangeDAO to assist Julian Assange’s legal defence, largely funded by the CypherPunks NFT community.

Contradiction between my dislike of many modern financial blockchain “applications” ($3M monkeys etc), and my grudging appreciation for the fact that that stuff is a big part of what keeps the crypto economy running and pays for all my favorite cool DAO/governance experiments.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Buterin said that while he wanted more countries to adopt crypto, he had concerns that the kind of governments most likely to fully embrace the technology are less likely to allow freedom to flourish:

Contradiction between my desire to see more countries adopting radical policy experiments (eg. crypto countries!) and my realization that the governments most likely to go all the way on such things are more likely to be centralized and not friendly to diversity internally.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 17, 2022

Unlike many crypto founders who shy away from difficult topics and go all in on self-promotion, Buterin is prepared to discuss flaws he sees in the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, earlier this month he shared his belief that gas fees on Ethereum layer-2 protocols should be under 10 cents to be considered “truly acceptable”.