Vitalik Buterin Decries Initial Web3 Goals Losing Significance
In a blog post, Buterin claimed there is a significant ideological gap where the world of blockchain would ‘view the crypto space as a disturbance.’
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s cofounder, noted that Web3’s earlier versions have ‘lost significance,’ with several projects disregarding decentralization’s core idea. Via a blog post called ‘Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again,’ he talked about a significant ideological gap. In this case, he claimed that the rift entailed ‘considerable parts of the non-blockchain community viewing the crypto world as interference instead of an allied spirit and robust supporter.’
Buterin said that Gavin Wood, Ethereum’s cofounder’ was the first to invent the term Web3. Instead of viewing it as ‘Bitcoin plus smart contracts,’ Wood considered it a group of technologies that could jointly create the base layer of a more open internet stack.
Further, Buterin claimed that a majority of people in several nations utilize cryptocurrency to send and save money. However, they mostly do this via centralized means. This can happen ‘by trading USDT on Tron or internal transfers on centralized exchange accounts.’
Increase in Transaction Costs
Buterin noted that an increase in transaction fees would be the ‘major culprit’ behind the shift. He wrote that when the cost of writing to the chain is $0.001 or $0.1, people are likely to make all forms of applications that utilize blockchains in different ways, which also includes non-financial ways.
However, when the fee rises to more than $100, ‘degen gamblers’ would still be inclined or become more ready to play.’
Buterin also noted that in most cases, degen gamblers are considered high-risk traders. Thus, when they end up being the most prominent group utilizing the chain extensively, ‘public perception as well as the internal culture of the crypto space’ changes.
Positive progress
In addition to highlighting the prevailing problems in the community, Buterin highlighted Ethereum’s positive developments.
The Ethereum co-founder noted that improvements in scaling solutions can give hope for a revitalization of decentralized ethos. Examples of these solutions include rollups, the rise of light customers and account abstractions, and 2nd generation privacy solutions.
Buterin claimed there is rising awareness concerning over-financialization and unchecked realization not being what crypto entails. Such growing awareness, as well as the aforementioned crucial technologies, ‘present an opportunity to take matters in a different course.’
Optimism Towards Zero-knowledge Proofs
Buterin claimed that zero-knowledge proofs and their rising developer-friendliness guarantee new opportunities for client applications as well as privacy-safeguarding technologies. He visualizes a future that entails Ethereum becoming a hub for various apps, including safe and anonymous voting systems and decentralized social media.
Further, he said the technologies are vastly embraced to enhance Ethereum’s flexibility and are also quite beneficial for privacy. Specifically, the ability to program zero-knowledge proofs’ indicates the ability to go beyond the informal fallacy of ‘anonymous but risky’ versus KCY’d thus safe.
The programmability can also ensure privacy as well as simultaneous verification and authentication. Such is necessary considering the increased regulatory scrutiny towards verification and authentication necessity in digital assets ecosystem.
Restating Fundamental Values
Buterin encouraged the Ethereum community to embrace the fundamental values. They include decentralization, credible neutrality, open international participation, cooperate mindset and tool building, auditability, decentralization, and credible neutrality.
Buterin said creating things within the crypto ecosystem that do not adhere to these values is possible. In this case, a person can establish a ‘layer 2’ system. However, the same system might be highly centralized and protected by a multisig, with no intentions to move to something safer.
Countering the pressures is difficult. However, failure to do so increases the risk of losing the crypto ecosystem’s exceptional value. Additionally, there is the risk of recreating a clone of the present web2 ecosystem with additional steps and inefficacies.
