vitalikbuterin

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed willingness to risk 90% of his capital, taking a stand against the prediction of a major decline in Bitcoin’s value due to the development of artificial intelligence. In this way, he responded to a statement by well-known venture investor Liron Shapira, who predicted the collapse of the first cryptocurrency in the next two years.

Vitalik Buterin Explains Ethereum Foundation’s New Direction: Why Ethereum Is Choosing Conviction Over Size
The future direction of the Ethereum Foundation is becoming clearer — and according to Vitalik Buterin, it is not about becoming bigger, faster, or more corporate.
Instead, Ethereum is moving toward a leaner, more focused structure centered on what Vitalik calls the “CROPS” values:
▪︎ Censorship Resistance
▪︎ Openness
▪︎ Privacy
▪︎ Security
In a detailed reflection on the Foundation’s transition, Vitalik explained why Ethereum is intentionally avoiding the path taken by many competing blockchains and technology companies. His message was direct: Ethereum should not aim to be “slightly better” than everyone else. It should aim to become fundamentally different.
Ethereum Foundation Is Shrinking — By Design
One of the most important revelations from Vitalik’s comments is that the Ethereum Foundation is intentionally becoming smaller.
Unlike many blockchain ecosystems where foundations control massive portions of token supply, the Ethereum Foundation reportedly holds only around 0.16% of total ETH supply. In contrast, many competing blockchain foundations hold anywhere from 10% to 50% of their native assets.
That difference matters.
Vitalik emphasized that Ethereum was never designed to have a permanent centralized administrator. The Foundation originally existed to complete core milestones such as:
▪︎ Frontier
▪︎ Homestead
▪︎ Metropolis
▪︎ Serenity
Most of those foundational goals were completed years ago. Now, the organization is shifting from being a broad operator into a focused mission-driven institution.
This also explains why the Foundation is reducing its involvement in certain areas, allowing developers and researchers to build independently with outside funding rather than remaining permanently tied to EF.
According to Vitalik, this is not weakness — it is decentralization in practice.
Ethereum Does Not Want To Become “Just Another Fast Chain”
One of the strongest themes in Vitalik’s message was his rejection of the industry obsession with speed alone.
Today, many blockchains compete primarily on:
▪︎ Higher TPS
▪︎ Lower latency
▪︎ Faster finality
▪︎ Cheaper fees
Vitalik argues this path leads to mediocrity if decentralization and resilience are sacrificed along the way.
Instead of chasing “1 million TPS marketing,” Ethereum wants to dominate in trust, neutrality, and security.
This is where the CROPS philosophy becomes central.
Ethereum’s long-term vision is not simply scaling transaction throughput. It is building infrastructure that can survive political pressure, censorship attempts, surveillance, and systemic attacks while remaining open to everyone.
That is a much harder engineering challenge.
The Rise of “Unreasonable Ethereum”
Vitalik used an interesting comparison involving Google to explain his philosophy.
He described how many tech companies started with idealistic goals but gradually drifted toward profit maximization, surveillance systems, and government alignment.
His argument is that society benefits when at least some organizations resist those trends.
Ethereum wants to become one of those “unreasonable” systems — a network willing to prioritize principles even when doing so is slower, harder, or less profitable in the short term.
This philosophy also reflects Ethereum’s long-standing commitment to neutrality and open access.
AI Could Transform Ethereum Security
Perhaps the most fascinating technical point from Vitalik’s discussion involved AI-assisted formal verification.
He stated that creating a nearly bug-free Ethereum once sounded impossible, but advances in AI are rapidly changing that assumption.
Formal verification uses mathematical proofs to validate software correctness. Historically, this process has been expensive and difficult to scale.
Now, AI tools are making it significantly more practical.
If successful, Ethereum could become the first major blockchain ecosystem to dramatically reduce smart contract vulnerabilities and protocol-level bugs through large-scale verification systems.
This would be a major leap forward for blockchain security.
Ethereum’s Biggest Competitive Advantage May Be Trust
Vitalik also highlighted Ethereum’s unique consensus design.
According to him, Ethereum combines two important security properties:
▪︎ Byzantine Fault Tolerance-style security
▪︎ Bitcoin-style resilience against large attackers
Very few networks attempt to combine both.
Rather than relying heavily on social coordination or emergency hard forks, Ethereum’s roadmap increasingly focuses on making the protocol itself more resilient under extreme conditions.
This matters because Ethereum secures hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and infrastructure.
In Vitalik’s view, trust minimization will become more important — not less — as AI systems, digital surveillance, and geopolitical tensions continue accelerating globally.
Privacy Is Becoming A Core Ethereum Priority
Another major area of focus is privacy infrastructure.
Vitalik criticized the current blockchain user experience where wallets and applications often depend heavily on intermediaries and third-party infrastructure providers.
Projects and upgrades such as:
▪︎ FOCIL
▪︎ EIP-8141
▪︎ Smart contract wallets
▪︎ Privacy protocols like Railgun
are designed to reduce dependency on centralized intermediaries while improving transaction privacy and inclusion guarantees.
The broader goal is to ensure users can interact with Ethereum without exposing excessive personal information or relying on centralized gateways.
Why Some Talent Is Leaving Ethereum Foundation
One controversial part of the transition is the departure of respected developers and contributors from EF.
Vitalik addressed this directly.
He explained that allowing talented individuals to leave the Foundation can actually strengthen the ecosystem because it enables independent organizations and external funding sources to emerge.
In other words, decentralization means Ethereum innovation should not depend entirely on one institution.
This shift may initially appear chaotic, but it aligns closely with Ethereum’s original philosophy of distributed coordination.
Ethereum’s Future: Smaller Organization, Bigger Conviction
Vitalik’s overall message is not about retreat.
It is about specialization.
The Ethereum Foundation wants to focus on the hardest problems that few others are willing to prioritize:
▪︎ Censorship resistance
▪︎ Privacy preservation
▪︎ Secure scaling
▪︎ Neutral infrastructure
▪︎ Intermediary minimization
▪︎ Long-term protocol resilience
Rather than competing solely on transaction speed, Ethereum wants to become the blockchain ecosystem most trusted to survive over decades.
That strategy may not produce the fastest short-term growth narrative.
But if Ethereum succeeds, it could create something far more valuable: a decentralized financial and digital infrastructure durable enough for the AI era.
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