Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum’s co-founders, answered the criticism regarding the new institutional focus of blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. Buterin told Joe Weisenthal, co-host of Bloomberg’s financial podcast Odd Lots, that crypto culture “idealistic hippies” were still in the space, and that projects in this regard have moved forward quite a bit, citing Lens and Farcaster as examples.
Vitalik Buterin Responds to Criticism on the Institutionalization of the Crypto Space: We’re Still Here
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Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin States ‘Idealistic Hippies’ Are Still Involved in Crypto
The cryptocurrency space has mutated lately, but some of its original libertarian flame remains. Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the smart contracts-enabled cryptocurrency Ethereum, has clarified that these original ideas are still there, even when the spotlight in crypto has shifted to other issues.
Joe Weisenthal, co-host of Bloomberg’s financial market podcast Odd Lots, called into attention the changes the cryptocurrency space has experienced in the last five to six years. “Bank then, you still had idealist hippies, talking about things like democracy on the blockchain, or UBIs (Universal Basic Income), or open internet,” he stated.
Weisenthal stressed that financial and institutional issues, besides meme coin talk, were now in the cryptocurrency industry spotlight. However, Buterin rebuffed this notion, declaring that while these issues are far from the media’s eyes, these are still being worked on. Buterin stressed:
We’re still here! And a lot of that idealistic open internet stuff has actually moved forward quite a bit, eg. we have farcaster and lens, quadratic and retroactive funding, zupass, privacy-preserving ways to send ETH, ZK voting implementations…
Buterin has been constantly proposing solutions to technical and social subjects regarding improving Ethereum and the crypto space on social media and his website. This involvement and the solutions he provided for these issues prompted some crypto community members to accuse Weisenthal of visibility bias, being unaware of the groups supporting this kind of project.
Weisenthal then invited Buterin to Odd Lots, to discuss these still-existent crypto projects.
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