Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, in his latest brief note “Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again,” urged a return to the project’s original vision. Buterin cited memories of Bitcoin acceptance in Berlin’s Bitcoin Kiez and libertarian gatherings like PorcFest in New Hampshire. He says that this highlights the deeper vision underlying crypto, a holistic approach to building a more free and open society and economy.
Vitalik Buterin seeks to revive original vision
The Ethereum co-founder expressed the concern that the initial vision of “web3,” which aimed to create a more open internet stack, has faded into the background since 2017. Buterin attributes this shift to rising transaction fees. He stated that when fees soared during bull markets, the users who were willing to engage with decentralized applications shifted predominantly to speculative gamblers.
However, Vitalik Buterin sees positive developments in 2023. He pointed out the progress made in scaling solutions like rollups. This includes advancements in privacy solutions, the development of account abstraction, the emergence of light clients, and the maturation of zero-knowledge proofs.
These technological achievements are combined with a growing awareness that unchecked centralization contradicts crypto’s ethos. He added that it presents an opportunity to redirect Ethereum toward its original values.
Can this revive Ethereum?
Buterin outlines key values, including open global participation, decentralization, censorship resistance, audibility, credible neutrality, building tools rather than empires, and a cooperative mindset. He emphasizes the need to resist pressures to compromise on these values, warning against the risk of recreating existing web2 inefficiencies within the crypto ecosystem.
The note serves as a call to action for the Ethereum community to prioritize the core values that define the project’s ethos. Buterin encourages builders to resist the lure of centralization and reaffirms the importance of creating a truly decentralized, permissionless, and censorship-resistant ecosystem.
This appeal reflects a broader sentiment within the crypto community, urging a return to the foundational principles of decentralization and openness as blockchain technology continues to evolve.
