Vitalik Buterin has disappeared or is it fake news?

Yesterday, rumors circulated that Vitalik Buterin had mysteriously disappeared, but what really happened?

Vitalik Buterin has not disappeared, but he recently faced a significant change in leadership at the Ethereum Foundation. On March 1, 2025, the Ethereum Foundation announced a new leadership structure, with Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as the new co-directors. Wang has been an Ethereum researcher for seven years, while Stańczak is the CEO of Nethermind, one of the leading execution clients of Ethereum.

These changes came in response to growing community criticism of how the Ethereum Foundation was managing the project. Buterin himself responded to the criticisms by asking for more respect towards the work done by the foundation. However, this does not mean he has abandoned Ethereum: he continues to be a key figure in the ecosystem and to propose strategies to improve the network, such as increasing transaction capacity and incentives for Layer-2

In conclusion, there are no confirmed reports of Vitalik Buterin's disappearance. However, in the world of cryptocurrencies, false rumors about incidents and tragedies can have a significant impact on the markets.

For example, in 2017, a fake news story circulated claiming that Buterin had died in a car accident in Canada, causing a temporary drop in the price of Ethereum by up to 21% in a week. In the end, Buterin denied the rumor by posting proof of his existence on Twitter, showing the hash of an Ethereum block

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