Ethereum founder would like better things for DeFi

An interview has just been published (March 18, 2022) in the newspaper Time. The title is evocative: " The Man Behind Ethereum Is Worried About Crypto's Future ». We quickly understand that the article wants to share with us the doubts and concerns of the person who created Ethereum…

Generally, it is very difficult to get interviews from the founder ofEthereum : Vitalik Buterin. He rightly announces at the start of the interview that he would like to speak more. He thinks he must do it - now - to highlight projects more interesting for humanity than those relayed by the media.

We really appreciated the article and thought it was relevant to summarize it for you here.

You can still read the original here.

Interview questioned

It has now been 9 years since Vitalik Buterin imagined Ethereum. Since the publication of the white book in 2013, it has since become the 2nd crypto in terms of market capitalization. Today, Ethereum competes with Visa in terms of transaction volume. It has become a giant among giants.

The angle chosen by the journalist Andrew R. Chow would like to take stock of these 9 years in some way. The purpose of the interview is that Vitalik Buterin gives us his point of view on the development of decentralized finance.

The interview closes the annual event which lasts one year dedicated to the advances of Ethereum: ETHDenver.

It is thanks to the infrastructure of Ethereum that we were able to design decentralized finance. Bitcoin technology being mainly a means of payment technology where Ethereum allows us to do many other things (exchange platform, financial services, crypto lending loan, video games etc.).

Cryptos have dystopian potential

The observation so far is that Ethereum has made a handful of white men incredibly rich. Crypto has also been the vector of beautiful and frank tax evasions, astonishing scams and money laundering.

All done in a few clicks, without any IT difficulties and safe from financial police.

The word “dystopia” takes on its full meaning here. In a way, thinking that everyone would get richer was a beautiful utopia. No, the truth is that only a handful of people (not the best-intentioned) will become rich and ever richer. Among them, we find notorious investors and Hedge fund recognized.

The redistribution of wealth is a myth today… (Cf the article of bitcoin aristocrats).

Vitalik is concerned about the shameless display of wealth accumulated by crypto enthusiasts. He has always pointed out the excesses of " of people " ( THE " DeFi degenerates »...

Buterin is outraged by the fact thatwe talk less and less about technology and utility and more money generated and crypto trading. (Finally, the famous DeFi developer Andrew Cronje recently left DeFi for the same reasons…)

A bit like those influencers on social networks who display their wealth in an outrageous way: Display of luxury watches, backfiring sports cars, purchases of useless but expensive objects...We don't talk about utility or technology… The list is long of this type of display of wealth. Go to Instagram and you will have a beautiful panorama of this type of life based on crypto lifestyle.

Rich people who only think about being "rich"

Vitalik mentions, for example, the surge in prices of depressed monkeys and he fears it will become "another kind of game."

He then mentions the NFTs of Bored Ape Yacht Club, an NFT collection that sells for thousands of dollars (count 250,000 euros for the cheapest). Celebrities themselves like Paris Hilton have purchased some – and are proud to show off their collections.

“The goal of crypto isn’t to play games with million-dollar monkey images, it’s to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world.”

Vitalik Buterin, for the Times. (He refers – among other things – to the crypto donations which helped the resistance Ukrainian).

DeFi could be a launching pad for socio-political experiments

Behind all this noise and shiny watches, Vitalik hopes that we will be interested in everything that DeFi allows you to do (other than personal enrichment).

For Buterin, DeFi could be used to create more equitable voting systems, urban planning, create a universal basic income, reinvent public works projects, rethink the land register, improve the economic models of companies, etc. DeFi can do a lot more than we think.

Furthermore, he recalls that Ethereum could be a counterweight to authoritarian governments and GAFAM companies, for example. For him, cryptos should be a game changer with Web3…That’s why he’s worried about projects that aren’t as decentralized as they claim…

(Read the article : Cryptos are not as decentralized as you think…)

The problem of plutocratic governance

Vitalik Buterin has written extensively on the issues inherent in the governance of crypto projects.

He has always criticized the fact that people with more tokens have more "voices" in the voting system.

Ultimately, according to Buterin, it is just a new version of plutocracy. The wealthy and venture capitalists can then make self-serving, selfish decisions and encounter little resistance…

“It’s become a de facto norm, which is a dystopia that I’ve seen unfold over the last few years,” he tells TIME.

Vitalik wants to speak more publicly

He admits, however, that his positive view of Ethereum could be crushed by greed.

He then told the journalist that this is why he wants to do more interviews and be more visible in the cryptosphere.

He says that he wants to reluctantly (once again, it is not in his rather shy and discreet nature to expose himself to the media) assume his public role.

He wants to do it because he feels that it is becoming important and inevitable to highlight the most noble of DeFi projects.

The journalist specifies that the height of irony is that the founder perhaps does not have the capacity to deviate from the trajectory that has been taken…

It is indeed the developers and the community who "make" DeFi... The founder cannot impose his own vision and the goal was not to have any leader (not even Vitalik).

The goal, as for Bitcoin, was to make it a decentralized project, by and for the community.

Vitalik continues to write and research

Vitalik Buterin is one of the only crypto members who writes and publishes about his work.

Compared to other developers, he is truly one of the few to think about the issues surrounding blockchain. It’s his way of applying soft power, in a way.

He was very critical of the way things are going and the fad, for example, of buying lambos while there are so many beautiful things to do. He says he feels like he's shouting into the wind when he criticizes the status quo...

We remind you that Vitalik Buterin started his "career" by writing articles for an online newspaper "Bitcoin Weekly" (which no longer exists today). Then, he co-founded the newspaper Bitcoin Magazine (always online with very good articles). He was also the editor-in-chief and it was also with this magazine that he began to publish his thoughts on blockchain.

For the record, Vitalik was paid 5 BTC per article (at the time, it was only worth $4 and today, it would be worth around $200,000).

The future of Ethereum

Of course, all Ethereum supporters are waiting for the long-awaited “merge” of Ethereum into Proof-of-Stake. This is the update that will reduce Ethereum’s energy consumption by more than 99%. Some rumors say that this will happen before 2023…

So, yes, we have been waiting so long that it is reminiscent of a “Waiting for Godot” story, to use the perfect reference mentioned by the Time journalist.

Thinking about human society

Since he created Ethereum, he publishes regularly on his personal blog. He shares personal reflections between economics and philosophy. Interested in complex concepts like fair voting or quadratic, Harberger taxes or the futarchy, Vitalik likes to imagine the possibilities that can be created on the blockchain.

He also shares his favorite projects like Proof of Humanity which attempts to create a universal basic income.

Today, the Ethereum founder is pushing thinking beyond cryptographic boundaries. He even dedicated a “philosophy” section to his writings.

It is clearly geared towards solving socio-political problems. All his thinking now seems focused on this type of societal problem solving.

This is how we know that we are dealing here with a genius (in the sense of extraordinary intelligence) who thinks above all about creating solutions for the greatest number rather than his personal enrichment... It is indeed the characteristic of geniuses to think of man with a capital H, isn't it?

Honestly, we're going to tell you something even more true...

Few crypto project founders have such loftiness.

• Read the article original on TIME : The Man Behind Ethereum Is Worried About Crypto's Future
• Follow on Twitter Vitalik Buterin
• Read Vitalik Buterin's blog

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