Buterin the philosopher
Nothing Vitalik Buterin ever says goes unnoticed.
The Ethereum co-founder can be outspoken, he can be measured, he can be philosophical. But when he speaks, the crypto world listens.
With all major cryptocurrencies taking Ethereum pivots a dive amid uncertainty in US markets over the Trump administration’s economic and foreign policies, one might have expected him to come out swinging.
Instead, the crypto universe is seeing Buterin the philosopher, with a dash of thoughtful intent thrown in for good measure.
Buterin recently allocated 16,384 ETH (Ethereum’s native token), worth some $43 million, to “deliver on an aggressive roadmap that ensures Ethereum’s status as a performant and scalable world computer”.
It will also secure the long-term sustainability of the Ethereum Foundation.
In a post on X in late January, he talked about Ethereum entering a five-year period of “mild austerity” to achieve these outcomes.
Open season
The Ethereum price has not been spared the fallout from high market volatility, regulatory uncertainty and a loss of confidence in cryptocurrencies’ “safe haven” narrative.
Investors have thrown their lot in with gold, believing the precious metal to be a far safer bet than crypto to safeguard their interests.
Yet Buterin is refusing to be reactive to the drop in ETH, choosing instead to focus on Ethereum’s long-term goals.
He describes Ethereum as an indispensable part of the “full-stack openness and verifiability” vision, where the primary priority is “Ethereum for people who need it”.
“In a world where many people’s default mindset is that we need to race to become a big strong bully, because otherwise the existing big, strong bullies will eat you first, this is the needed alternative,” he wrote in the January 30 post.
“It will involve much more than technology to succeed, but the technical layer is something which is in our control to make happen. The tools to ensure your, and your community’s, autonomy and safety, as a basic right that belongs to everyone.”
By “open”, he meant secure and verifiable so users knew the technology was working for them.
Value not in price alone
Buterin signalled that the next half-decade would be dedicated to creating a full stack of software and hardware to protect privacy and the public environment.
The stack would include finance, communications and governance applications, blockchains, operating systems, secure hardware, biotechnology “and much more”.
Buterin would be acutely aware of the impact of his statements.
Without putting it into as many words, he effectively is saying that ETH prices will rise and fall, but Ethereum’s status as the decentralised finance (DeFi) king will only be enhanced in the years to come.
With big-name institutional investors and whales still gaga over the platform’s DeFi capabilities, the co-founder knows that the game has changed.
It is no longer price alone that determines a network’s value – it is everything that it can do that attracts investors Ethereum pivots.
Ethereum has money and plenty of it Ethereum pivots, so the austerity framing is much more to do with longer planning horizons during the market downturn than it is about any fund shortages.
The platform is steadying the ship to prepare for an even bigger voyage down the line.
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