vitalik was right: legitimacy, not code, governs ethereum's capital flows. what he didn't foresee: legitimacy can be bought by whoever the protocol pays. in 2021 his essay explained why miners couldn't stop 1559. in 2026 it explains why stakers killed (?) 8363. a prophecy hides in vitalik's 2021 essay: redirecting miner pay risks "political chaos and capture." but core devs did it twice (1559+merge) against the outsiders (miners). unfortunately it only worked because miners had no vote. the merge handed the money to stakers, who do. https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html(Zeng Jiajun 曾嘉俊)