Vitalik Buterin: All That Ethereum 🍀
Vitalik Buterin: All That Ethereum 🍀
Five ways to rebuild Ethereum from scratch - Buterin retrospective. A crypto economist or a computer scientist? Are Layer 2s cultural extensions of Ethereum ecosystem? Vitalik's 30 ETH donation.
Hello, y'all. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes Turn and face the strange 🎤
Do try the Music Quiz Game 👉 Asset - Music Nerd
This is The Token Dispatch 🙌 find all about us here 🤟
Vitalik wants to change a few things about Ethereum.
Yes. Ethereum. The talk of the town this summer.
The US has just approved a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has launched its own tokenised fund.
Network is a sprawling ecosystem of developers and financial applications worth more than $66 billion.
The home for decentralised finance.
Read: Ethereum ETFs Day 🎉
At a recent ETHBerlin event, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin surprised attendees with a candid confession: he has some regrets about the initial design of the world's second-largest blockchain.
ETHBerlin? It is a massive hackathon and cultural festival focused on blockchain innovation. Developers, designers, and enthusiasts gather to build projects, learn, and celebrate the decentralised web.
Five things Buterin would do differently if he could rebuild Ethereum from scratch.
1/Earlier Proof-of-Stake Transition
Buterin acknowledges that Ethereum's 2022 switch from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) could have happened much earlier.
“We could have saved a huge amount of trees if we had a much simpler proof-of-stake in 2018.”
2/Oversized Virtual Machine
Buterin's first point of reflection concerns the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the core engine driving the network.
He admits that the original design used 256-bit processing, which was inefficient and created unnecessary bloat on the blockchain, even for simple tasks.
He believes a more efficient 64-bit or 32-bit approach would have been better suited.
3/Focus on Smart Contract Simplicity
Secondly, Buterin emphasizes the importance of writing smart contracts with fewer lines of code.
This, he argues, would enhance transparency and make it easier for users to understand and audit the code.
4/Missing Transaction Logs
With the shift towards smart wallets like Safe, automatic logging of Ether transfers is being lost, making it harder to track transactions.
Buterin acknowledges this oversight and suggests a simple fix that could have been implemented early on.
5/Keccak vs. SHA-2
Buterin also expresses regret over choosing Keccak as the network's hash function instead of the more widely used SHA-2.
This decision required the development of a custom library, creating compatibility issues with other systems.
He also highlights the continuous improvement of the Ethereum development team and:
“We’re in a position to effectively and safely correct some of these mistakes.”
Ethereum's Rollup Future?
Buterin in his blog acknowledges the potential downsides of the blockchain's rollup-centric scaling strategy.
It carries the risk of creating isolated communities and potentially stifling the platform's open ethos.
Rollup Model Benefits
Enables diverse communities and independent development.
Allows for experimentation and adaptation to real-world needs.
“In general, every Ethereum layer 2 has a unique ‘soul’: some combination of Ethereum’s culture, together with its own particular twist.”
Potential Risks
Fragmented ecosystem with limited collaboration.
Domination by specific layer 2s, leading to a monoculture.
Buterin's Proposed Solution: Layer 2s should collaborate and invest in shared infrastructure.
Block That Quote 🎙️
Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys founder, Joseph Lubin.
“…more of a crypto economist than a computer scientist.”
Lubin spoke on length on the Decentralize with Cointelegraph podcast, on Ethereum, Vitalik’s role, the regulatory landscape and how there is a close collaboration between Consensys and the Ethereum Foundation.
“[Buterin] makes great contributions in terms of a high-level roadmap sketch that people can flesh out. He’s always considered or considered himself probably more of a crypto economist than a computer scientist.
[Buterin] spent a bunch of time in Montenegro. There are opportunities there and in other place of the world with this clash of civilisations in a sort of organised way, by changing laws and by enabling nation states to level themselves up with respect to our technology.”
Lucas Schor, CEO of Safe Wallet, spoke to Jenkinson at Safe{Con} in Berlin, spoke about Buterin’s influence on the Ethereum ecosystem, explaining that, among other advocates for Ethereum, Buterin’s influence always has "extra impact."
“In our part of the ecosystem, Vitalik is someone that's pushing for the content section agenda, and he will talk about challenges that he sees along the way. Him doing that will probably have a bunch of people then think about how can we solve these challenges, which is quite valuable."
Ethereum L2s As Cultural Hubs
Vitalik Buterin wrote an explainer blog post on layer-2 (L2) solutions as the cultural breeding grounds within the Ethereum ecosystem.
L2s = Scaling benefits.
But not just that.
L2s = Platforms for diverse "subcultures" to thrive and contribute to the overall growth of Ethereum.
What subcultures?
Cypherpunks: Infrastructure builders focused on technical development.
Regens: Philanthropic individuals dedicated to public goods within the ecosystem.
Degens: Speculative traders driven by profit opportunities in memecoins and NFTs.
Cultural pluralism
“If a blockchain becomes publicly understood as being ‘the casino chain’ and nothing else, it becomes hard to get non-casino applications onboard.”
To foster a healthy and inclusive ecosystem, Buterin advocates for "cultural pluralism," where different subcultures can coexist and contribute their unique strengths. This allows for:
Core development: Focus on the technical foundation of the ecosystem.
Expanding the ecosystem: Exploring and developing new applications and use cases.
Early signs of pluralism
While still in its early stages, some L2s are already showcasing promising examples of cultural diversity:
Optimism: Increased female leadership roles.
ZKSync: Balancing cypherpunk principles with user-friendliness.
In The Numbers 🔢
30 ETH
That’s how much Vitalik Buterin has donated to Tornado Cash legal defense fund on Juicebox.
With this, Buterin has also joined the fight to free Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.
This contribution adds to the growing pool of support.
The "Free Alexey & Roman" fund has already raised over $2.2 million in ETH from the crypto community.
Both developers are facing legal trouble.
Pertsev was sentenced to over 5 years in prison by Dutch courts for his alleged role in money laundering through Tornado Cash. He has appealed the verdict.
Roman Storm, detained in the US since 2023, awaits trial in September.
This isn't Buterin's first time using Juicebox for a cause he believes in.
In 2022, he donated to a legal fund supporting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Big Blockers Lost for a Reason
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has revisited the contentious "Bitcoin block size war" of the late 2010s, admitting that the "small block" camp ultimately prevailed for good reasons.
Big Blockers' vision lacked execution
Buterin, who initially sided with the "big block" faction advocating for larger block sizes, acknowledges that their technical proposals and overall approach were flawed.
The lack of competence and technical missteps that plagued their efforts, ultimately leading to their defeat.
Small Blockers focused on long-term sustainability
The "small block" camp, on the other hand, prioritised keeping the Bitcoin blockchain lightweight and preventing centralised control.
They aimed to ensure the network's long-term sustainability and avoid reliance on large, centralised entities.
“In my view, big blockers were right on the central question that blocks needed to be bigger, and that it was best to accomplish this with a clean simple hard fork like Satoshi described, but small blockers committed far fewer embarrassing technical faux pas, and had fewer positions that led to absurd outcomes if you tried to take them to their logical conclusion.”
The "small block" camp might have won this specific battle, but the debate around Bitcoin's scaling and future development remains.
The Surfer 🏄
Singapore's DBS Bank is rumoured to be holding $650 million worth of Ether in a crypto wallet. Blockchain analysis firm Nansen identified DBS as the Ethereum "whale" and estimates it has made a $200 million profit from holding Ether. DBS Bank denies having this position on their books and declines to comment on whether their digital exchange or custody solutions own the wallet.
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) proposes migration to Layer 2 network. ENSv2 upgrade aims to reduce gas fees and enhance scalability. Core functionalities will be transferred from Ethereum mainnet to Layer 2 chain.
El Salvador's pro-Bitcoin President Nayib Bukele sworn in for a second term. Crypto industry applauds Bukele's leadership and positive stance on Bitcoin.
If you like us, if you don't like us .. either ways do tell us✌️
If you dig what we do, show us love on Twitter and Instagram🤞
So long. OKAY? ✋