Vitalik Buterin Reveals Why He Is Unhappy With Recent Crypto Developments

Vitalik Buterin is undoubtedly one of the biggest names within the crypto space. While the founder made a name for himself through developing the second-largest crypto asset by market cap, Ethereum, it is extremely rare for him to grant an interview where he opens up on his view about the industry generally.

Times Magazine, earlier today, published an interview where he discussed some of the opinions he holds about the crypto space.

On NFTs

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in recent times have become one of the most popular crypto niches. The space ballooned from relative obscurity to one of the lead causes of Ethereum’s high gas fees.

According to Buterin, he didn’t expect NFTs to become the monolith it has recently evolved, and that has led to him watching the space with a mixture of “interest and anxiety.”

Speaking on the effects of NFTs on Ethereum, Buterin said that the space had made some other cool developments on Ethereum priced out. In his words, “With fees being the way they are today, it really gets to the point where the financial derivatives and the gambley stuff start pricing out some of the cool stuff.”

On DAOs

Decentralized autonomous organizations have also garnered much interest since the ConstitutionDAO attempted to purchase a rare copy of the constitution. Since then, multiple DAOs have come up with innovative ways of involving the community members in one unique purpose.

Buterin posits that the current format of coin voting which allows holders to vote based on the number of coins they hold, is a form of plutocracy as “wealthy venture capitalists can make self-interested decisions with little resistance.”

He proposes that voting in an organization could be “determined by the commitment an individual has shown to the group, as opposed to the number of tokens they own.”

Other issues

Buterin, in the interview, revealed that he was unhappy with the fact that El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender as it represents one of his worst-case scenarios with crypto, where the technology is concentrated in the hands of dictatorial governments.

He stated that he believes that these governments could use blockchain technology as surveillance technology, which would mean sacrificing a lot of potentials the tech has to offer.

The Canadian-Russian also used the opportunity to reiterate his newfound advocacy saying that the crypto community has shown the world that “the goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it’s to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world.”