In a new blog post, Vitalik Buterin pointed out the loss of web3's original values, ways the community can get back on track, and the progress ethereum has made so far.
Vitalik Buterin has always been a great personality. As one of the founders of ethereum, he has been an important figure within the cryptocurrency world for over a decade. He is also known for being outspoken about his views, which has sometimes led him to fight with others. But your most recent blog eth.limo/general/2023/12/28/cypherpunk.html” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener”>mailposted by Buterin on his personal blog, appears to denounce the current culture within the crypto industry and claim that the initial vision of web3 has been lost.
Buterin talking about the lost vision of Web3
In the post titled “Making ethereum Cypherpunk Again,” Buterin recalled several trips he took in the early 2010s to places around the world that had a concentration of crypto businesses. He had said that this type of community where all parties work together was the initial goal of Web3.
But over time, he says, this vision has not been preserved. According to him, some members of the decentralization community see cryptocurrencies as a distraction rather than a useful tool. And even among cryptocurrency users, he notes that the only non-financial application that is used on a large scale is the ethereum Naming Service (ENS). When cryptocurrencies are used as a means of payment or transfers, Buterin notes that it is done “either through internal transfers on centralized exchange accounts or by trading USDT on Tron.”
And what is the fault of this? According to Buterin, transaction fees are the main culprit. He says that when the cost of writing to the chain is $0.001 or $0.1, there is more potential use, even for non-financial reasons. But when transaction fees cross the $100 mark during bull runs, the main group left are degenerate gamblers. In moderation, he believes they don't pose too much of a risk but there are too many in the community.
ethereum now and beyond
In the blog post, Buterin highlighted some of the positive developments that have taken place in the ethereum community. He talked about the launch of rollups and second-generation privacy solutions like Railway and Nocturne. He also recognized that zero-knowledge proofs, account abstraction, and thin clients benefit the network in terms of scale, user privacy, and much more.
He noted that there is a growing understanding that unbridled centralization and over-financialization cannot be the essence of cryptocurrencies and that other values must be adopted. Some of the values he highlighted were auditability, censorship resistance, decentralization, open global participation, etc.
The blog ended on an optimistic note about the ethereum network and could hint at even more developments coming in 2024. From what we have seen, Buterin believes that there needs to be a change in the cryptocurrency and blockchain scene and we could see the results of this very soon.
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