A letter from V God to Nakamoto
Dear Mr. Nakamoto:
Sitting in front of the window in Zug, Switzerland, watching the freshly cleared streets after the snow, I suddenly wish to converse with you, a pioneer I have never met. Ethereum is experiencing the most intense clash of values in its ten-year history, and as a founder, I feel as though I am standing at the center of the storm, witnessing the struggle between idealism and pragmatism.
The rift in the community pains me
When I witnessed foundation members receiving death threats in January, I suddenly understood the wisdom of your choice to retreat. Those developers who once shouted 'code is law' are now arguing endlessly for short-term gains; former partners in building the ecosystem now see the prosperity of Layer 2 as a threat to the mainnet.
Ironically, when I criticized certain DeFi protocols for becoming a 'Ponzi casino', I was accused of 'betraying my original intention'—but isn't the true original intention to create a world computer that supports a new paradigm of human collaboration?
Sticking to principles in technological dilemmas
The brilliance with which you solved the double-spending problem using the UTXO model has always guided my thinking. Today, we seek a balance between ZK-Rollup and OP-Rollup, doubling the Blob capacity through the Pectra upgrade, each step feels like building a bridge on the edge of a cliff. Recently, some have questioned the foundation's sale of ETH, but do they not see that we are investing the profits into DankSharding research?
As Verkle trees compress node requirements to below 100GB, and cross-chain bridging delays drop from hours to seconds, I believe these silent engineering breakthroughs will eventually speak.
Deeper concerns lie in culture
The Bitcoin community maintains an awe-inspiring discipline, while Ethereum seems lost in the revelry of 'financial Lego'. Some venture capitalists advocate that the 'KOL casino' is the best PMF, which has made me consider retreating several times.
But we must not forget, ERC-4337 account abstraction allows African farmers to use fingerprint wallets, and zero-knowledge proofs are protecting journalist sources—these are the true essence of blockchain.
At this moment, re-reading the vision in your 2008 white paper, I am suddenly struck by the realization that we stand at the same crossroads. You built the cornerstone of trust with cryptography, and we are trying to expand the dimensions of collaboration with smart contracts. Perhaps, as you said, the true revolution lies not in technical parameters, but in the consensus flowing among millions of nodes.
Snow has begun to fall again outside, but the early cherry blossoms in Zug have started to bud. I will continue to refine the finality mechanism of the beacon chain and promote EIP-7251 to enhance validator efficiency. Perhaps looking back five years from now, the insults of this moment will merely be the growing pains before the ecosystem matures.
Sincerely
Vitalik Buterin
The night of February 7, 2025