Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency asset, is on everyone’s lips. But what lies behind its recent successes and visions for the future? Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, shared his thoughts on the network’s return to its cypherpunk roots. His end-of-year post outlines Ethereum’s core values and charts a new path for this technology.
Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, recently shared his reflection on the future of the network. In his December 28 blog post, he emphasized the need for Ethereum to return to its cypherpunk roots. The term “cypherpunk” refers to a movement promoting the use of technology to ensure privacy and social change, while protecting against oppression from the state or corporations.
The early vision of Ethereum, like that of Bitcoin, was deeply idealistic. It aimed to build an open, decentralized internet and economy, resistant to censorship. However, over time, as Buterin notes, the original vision was somewhat overshadowed by rising transaction fees and the dominance of applications focused on payments and speculation. The culture began to lean towards gambling.
Yet, 2023 brings signs of a revival of this culture, thanks to the reduction of transaction fees through rollup technology, advances in privacy technology such as zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs), and the desire to move beyond excessive financialization. Buterin believes that Ethereum can become a testing ground for innovations in openness and decentralized security, such as social recovery wallets, prediction markets, and quadratic voting.
Buterin emphasizes that the future Web3 tech stack should include decentralized equivalents of DNS, email, payments, identity, publishing, and management that cooperate with each other, avoiding central points of control.
Ethereum is not only growing stronger as an industry standard for smart contracts, but its value has also doubled since the beginning of the year. The price of ETH reached record levels in 2023, reaching $2,430. Buterin points out that many people come to the crypto world thinking about quick enrichment. Eventually, they become advocates of decentralization once they understand the potential of this technology.
Ethereum stands on the threshold of a new era, where the ideals of its cypherpunk roots can again start to shape the future of the digital world. It’s not just a matter of economics, but also values that can define future generations of the internet and finance.
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
