Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
As the price of ETH surged, briefly breaking above $4,400, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has surprisingly retreated from his previously active public presence last year, occasionally speaking out. His personal focus has shifted from cryptocurrencies and the Ethereum ecosystem to the recently popular ETH reserve strategy, AI models, and even cultural differences between China and the U.S.
With the Ethereum Foundation's reforms gradually advancing and the ETH reserve strategy in full swing, Vitalik seems to have temporarily shed the burdens of his role as founder, embodying a sense of detachment and clarity of purpose. Odaily Planet Daily will summarize Vitalik's recent public statements in this article to provide insight into his current thoughts and reflections.
A Brief Analysis of Vitalik's Recent Situation: Beyond the Ethereum Ecosystem, He is Also Concerned About Culture and AI
On May 21 of this year, Vitalik updated his status on Farcaster, stating that he bought a standard drink (a large hot green tea) at a Starbucks in Switzerland for 6.2 Swiss francs; compared to the price of 5.6 Swiss francs in 2014, the local annual inflation rate is only 1%, and his words were filled with astonishment. (Odaily Planet Daily note: In comparison, the expected annual inflation rate in the U.S. from 2013 to 2025 is 3.35%.)
Subsequently, after proposing the "ZK verification multi-worker allocation conjecture" and a "German pun," Vitalik went quiet for a while.
It wasn't until a month later that he posted again on Farcaster with an image. The post was made in the Berlin channel, captioned "Fuk bitcoins. Das ist unser Krieg." The accompanying image was a photo of a graffiti wall with the words "Fuk bitcoins. Das ist unser Krieg" (meaning "Bitcoin, get lost. This is our war"). It is understood that this graffiti is suspected to be a slogan opposing the war in support of Ukraine, originally meaning "this is not our war," with the negation crossed out, turning it into a call for peace and support for Ukraine.
At that time, Vitalik may have been wandering the streets of Berlin, discovering Bitcoin-related slogans, using them to express his call for peace and his confidence in ETH and the Ethereum ecosystem. He then shifted his focus back to the Ethereum ecosystem.
He Still Can't Let Go of His Beloved Ethereum Ecosystem
As a product of Vitalik's dedication, the Ethereum ecosystem is undoubtedly a technological achievement he finds hard to part with.
In the past three months, he has continued to make judgments and show high concern for the development, technical direction, and governance of the Ethereum ecosystem. In summary, his main points of emphasis include:
1. Emphasizing Ethereum's advantages and insisting on decentralized development. For example, he has expressed his views on the dual governance structure, risks of zero-knowledge proof identity verification, decentralized user protection systems, and initiating proposals to enhance Ethereum's network resistance to DoS attacks, stating that “Institutions choose Ethereum not for speed, but for its ‘stability, reliability, and no downtime’.” This is also reflected in the analysis of Ethereum's 10th anniversary, which mentioned that "Ethereum has been online for 10 years with zero downtime and zero maintenance." Additionally, he unexpectedly believes that “Ethereum's success has exceeded anyone's expectations.”
2. Focusing on the development of the Ethereum ecosystem and L2 networks. Recently, Vitalik has frequently emphasized the importance of L2 development, believing that “the best way to build L2 is to rely more on L1's functionality and suggest that L2 simplify its logic to sorters and provers to minimize trust dependencies and avoid hard fork requirements”; “Ethereum will ultimately achieve ‘almost real-time’ transfers of native assets across L2 through L1”; “L2 should aim for fast withdrawals using ZK systems as the next stage goal”. Undoubtedly, as a proponent of L2 solutions, Vitalik is fundamentally still an “L1 purist.”
3. Enhancing Ethereum L1 performance and reducing costs while increasing efficiency. On one hand, Vitalik supported raising the Ethereum L1 gas limit to 45 million through community voting; on the other hand, he, along with Anders Elowsson, initiated the EIP-0000 proposal, hoping to introduce a unified multi-dimensional fee market for Ethereum transactions, allowing users to set a total max_fee cap for various resources (such as gas, blobs, etc.), improving capital utilization efficiency and simplifying the operational experience.
“Drinking ice for ten years, hard to cool hot blood” — this phrase perfectly describes Vitalik's love for Ethereum. However, after experiencing the price trough of ETH last year, Vitalik no longer gets entangled in debates with the market and users over who is right or wrong, but instead focuses more on technical discussions and developments, paying attention to the overall growth of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Vitalik's Two Major Focuses Under His Decentralized Ideal: Privacy and Copyleft Open Source
Recently, Vitalik's two major focuses under his decentralized ideal also include privacy and open source.
Previously, the Ethereum Foundation donated $500,000 to support the legal defense of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. Vitalik also emphasized that “backdoor-free privacy messaging tools have been widely accepted, and the U.S. should set an example by supporting developers.”
Additionally, he has stated: “I have always supported permissive licenses because I want to maximize the adoption and dissemination of works, and releasing under a permissive license helps achieve this, as permissive licenses clearly state that if anyone wants to develop based on my work, they need not worry about any issues. Furthermore, from a philosophical perspective, I do not like copyright but appreciate the leftist idea of ‘using copyright against itself.’ However, this idea has now changed, and I have begun to focus more on Copyleft, as open source has become mainstream, making it more feasible for companies to move towards open source. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Huawei are embracing open source, and the competition in the cryptocurrency field is becoming increasingly fierce, driven solely by profit.” (Note: Copyleft is a concept and licensing method that contrasts with traditional copyright. Copyleft licensing requires that derivative works based on the original work must also be open-sourced under the same licensing terms, ensuring that the work remains open and shared during its dissemination and development.)
Perhaps, in Vitalik's view today, enjoying the conveniences of privacy and open source also requires supporting them with the same attitude, rather than just enjoying the benefits without taking on responsibilities as in the past.
He is More Concerned About AI Than One Might Imagine
Compared to cryptocurrencies, many might think that Vitalik has a negative attitude towards AI, but based on his recent statements, as a tech geek, he remains highly attentive and vigilant about AI.
Last month, he stated: "Regularly reminding people that AI is fully capable of taking the crazy crown of cryptocurrency within weeks." Yesterday, he posted again**: “Instead of pursuing the most ‘autonomous’ AI possible, it is better to create more pathways for human input, which not only enhances output quality over a longer period but is also more beneficial for safety. I am more interested in open-source AI models with good editing capabilities than in models generated from scratch. In the medium term, I hope to see advanced brain-computer interface technology that can display content in real-time during the generation process and perceive user emotions to adjust dynamically.” Additionally, he also published a lengthy article specifically responding to the "vision of AI in 2027."
It must be said that while countless people are still either placing blind faith in AI models or criticizing the content generated by AI models, Vitalik's expectations for AI are far more imaginative than most.
Are Cultural Differences Between China and the U.S. Also His Research Subject?
In a Farcaster post on July 21, Vitalik mentioned his favorite "century demarcation periods," including 1643-1648 (the transition from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the end of the Thirty Years' War, the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, the death of Galileo, and the birth of Newton), 1789 (the French Revolution, Lavoisier's formalization of chemistry), 1911-1917 (the Xinhai Revolution, World War I, the Russian Revolution, and relativity), and 2020-2023 (the COVID-19 pandemic, the end of U.S. governance, and AI passing the Turing test). It is evident that Vitalik has a considerable understanding of both domestic and international history.
In a recent post, he stated directly: “The cultural differences between China and the U.S. are still about four times greater than the cultural differences between generations (30 years). But I predict that as technological progress accelerates and global interconnectedness deepens, future generational differences will surpass national cultural differences and may bring many unexpected impacts, such as using longevity technology as a means of cultural preservation.”
In other words, as people's lifespans increase, national boundaries may become blurred, while generational distinctions will lead to different age groups having different memories, thus preserving different cultures in the memories of people from different generations.
Vitalik also discussed the ETH reserve strategy: one of the means of diversified investment, but warned against "over-leveraged games."
Aside from his personal channels, Vitalik recently appeared in an interview on the Ethereum ecosystem benchmark media — the Bankless podcast.
Regarding the "impact of ETH reserves on Ethereum," Vitalik openly stated, “ETH as an asset that companies can hold is good and valuable; providing more options is beneficial.”
However, he also issued a warning: “If you wake me up three years from now and tell me that sovereign debt has caused the collapse of ETH, my guess is that it has turned into an over-leveraged game.”
Of course, this statement has also been seen as one of Vitalik's endorsements of the ETH reserve strategy, which has drawn some criticism.
Some well-meaning individuals have dug up Vitalik's previous criticisms of Strategy founder Michael Saylor when he established BTC reserves, implying that his "butt determines his brain."
Vitalik's "double-faced approach"?
In my view, this is a matter of timing; at that time, Vitalik's criticism of Saylor was more focused on the fact that Strategy, as a regulated public company, might have a hoarding strategy that could negatively impact the decentralization of the cryptocurrency industry.
Looking back a year later, this point has almost become a foregone conclusion after the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs and Ethereum spot ETFs; the significant recovery of ETH over the past three months and the possibility of breaking new highs stem precisely from the main driving force of ETH reserve public companies.
The development of history does not change according to individual will; for Vitalik, the direction of Ethereum and even the cryptocurrency industry may be the same.
In March of this year, Vitalik changed his X platform account avatar from the previous Milady NFT to a Tauren druid bear form from World of Warcraft, a character he had used before. His Twitter bio was changed to “I choose balance. First-level balance. mi pinxe lo crino tcati,” and he linked to a post titled “In the Balance” published on the Slate Star Codex forum on September 12, 2018.
After reaching his thirties, having experienced a full decade of Ethereum network operation, and with the price of ETH returning to new highs since the end of 2021, the 1994-born Vitalik may also be slowly progressing on his path of understanding, seeking his destiny amidst various balances.
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