Conversation with Vitalik: Most people are trapped in the system, but I live outside the system

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(ID: chengpishu), author: Wu Yangyinghui, Liu Hongjun, special author: Orange Book, editor: Song Wei, published with authorization.

If your impression of the blockchain is still speculation, Vitalik Buterin, born in 1994, is a clear stream in the blockchain world. This Russian-Canadian has a huge forehead and a bony body. He speaks extremely fast, and has an unusual sensitivity to economics, politics, technology and logic.

Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin paper opened the door to cryptocurrency, but people have been trying to apply the blockchain in the early days, but they couldn't find a breakthrough. Until 2017, through the smart contract platform of Ethereum, you can issue your own tokens. The blockchain became popular, and people found a new way to open it. The Ethereum created by Vitalik pushed the entire industry to its peak. In order to express their admiration for him, people called the 25-year-old young man "V God".

V God’s growth experience is also very special. He mainly acquires knowledge through the Internet rather than school education. His father, Dmitry Buterin, is a computer scientist. He received his first computer when he was 4 years old. His parents divorced when he was 5 years old. He immigrated to Canada with his father from Russia when he was 6 years old. He discovered his mathematical talent in the first grade, and wrote a small game in C++ at the age of 12.

In high school, he learned about Bitcoin under the influence of his father, and then became addicted to it. At the age of 17, he became a contributor to "Bitcoin Weekly", earning 5 bitcoins for each article. At the age of 19, Vitalik took a leave of absence from school.

Vitalik has always considered himself "outside the system", so his original intention of building Ethereum was also to serve a group of marginalized people. But ironically, after the ICO became popular in 2017, Ethereum has become a paradise for speculators and speculators. This runs counter to Vitalik's original dream.

The second impact on Ethereum was Libra proposed by Facebook. Libra is a more realistic and imaginative product. Vitalik said that Libra will "absolutely" compete with decentralized public blockchains.

Vitalik's growth story, unique ideas and thinking make him one of the most conversational figures in the blockchain world. The following is an interview with Vitalik by Orange Book and LatePost.

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Talk about Libra

“Decentralization is not only an ideal, but also a very practical strategy with a high success rate.”

Q: What impact will Facebook's launch of Libra have on Ethereum and Bitcoin?

Vitalik: I don't think that a cryptocurrency backed by a large company like Libra will completely replace decentralized finance. A platform that is not controlled by any individual or centralized organization still has great value.

Silicon Valley is definitely trying to get more involved in finance. You know, being a cryptocurrency is much simpler than doing a payment business. For the latter, you need to have a good relationship with the financial systems of various countries.

Q: Will this have an impact on the fiat currencies of other countries, such as the RMB?

Vitalik: Possibly. Because most of the main players who endorse Libra are American companies, other countries will be wary of such a project that is basically controlled by the United States.

Q: Pure idealists rarely win in the end in history. Are more realistic projects like Facebook's Libra the key enablers of blockchain's mass adoption?

Vitalik: Maybe. Some things that actually happen in the blockchain, some things that idealists, probably including me, expect, are directly in conflict. This is true of every technological revolution.

But the vast majority of Libra validators are in the U.S., and many people in many countries are very distrustful of a U.S.-based system because they don't trust the U.S. government. This may be a significant obstacle to its global application. Decentralized systems like Ethereum do not have this barrier.

Therefore, decentralization is not just an ideal goal, but a strategy with a very high success rate in today's increasingly trustless world, and a very practical strategy. We should stick to it to increase our chances of success.

Q: You strongly agree with freedom and decentralization. What gave you your first introduction to libertarian decentralization?

Vitalik: I have felt since childhood that freedom, openness, and equality are all important. When I got to high school, those feelings started to turn into a more solid outlook on life. At that time I discovered the free open source software community, Austrian economics, Bitcoin, they all appeared in my world at the same time. I spend a lot of time reading books and articles on the internet exploring these ideas and communities.

In a way, I'm someone who's been living "outside the system". My experience of learning a lot of things myself through the Internet made me realize that one thing is important: building a world where people who are out of the mainstream in any way can live.

I didn't have a credit card when I was young, and bitcoin allowed me to buy things on the internet and more importantly it allowed me to get a job online and start earning money. To me this is an important real life demonstration of the value of decentralized technology - creating a more inclusive world.

Q: In the real world, people still tend to trust centralized organizations, such as governments, banks, and large companies.

Vitalik: I don't think decentralized systems should take over the world, as long as they can occupy a key area is enough.

Q: Is the field occupied by the blockchain too small now, only exchanges and some cryptocurrencies.

Vitalik: It's just that the technology hasn't developed yet. Let's see what happens when the technology gets there.

Q: You once said that if TRON beats Ethereum, you will lose some confidence in human beings. Do you think TRON and Justin Sun will succeed?

Vitalik: I previously called Justin Sun the Trump of China. There's a good chance he'll "succeed" the way Trump did. If another blockchain bubble happens, a project like Tron can grow very large. It can even evolve into a useful item for something like gambling.

But it's not really decentralized, and that's an outcome that worries me a lot. This kind of thing could allow the government to step in to regulate and then hit the entire industry.

People working on a lot of projects right now don’t actually have enough financial education to avoid risks — that’s one of the reasons why I don’t put a lot of money into the blockchain through bank integration, etc. The blockchain world needs more time to grow in a relatively simple environment.

Q: Do you think the blockchain space is actually growing too fast?

Vitalik: The Ethereum blockchain is currently 100% full (referring to Ethereum network congestion). If growth gets faster and faster, the extra energy isn't spent on useful things.

Vitalik: Scalability is not ready is a big problem, user account security is not ready is another big problem. Imagine if there were $50 billion in cryptocurrency in mobile wallets and a back door in the operating system...that's why I publicly push for better account security solutions like multi-agency recovery and social recovery every week on Twitter .

I know that the great strength of the Chinese tech community is building a good user experience, so addressing account security is probably something that people in the Chinese Ethereum community can try and do well.

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talk about evolution

"We had to choose between the most perfect and the most concise."

Q: What was the biggest compromise you made during the upgrade of Ethereum to 2.0?

Vitalik: Probably the biggest compromise is that we have to give up some things. For example, we don't have time to create more perfect and more beautiful algorithms.

Casper FFG is an example. Even today we know that Casper CBC is theoretically better, but we decided to put it in a future version. The Casper FFG protocol is about 30% shorter than it was six months ago because of our concerted effort to simplify it. (Note: Casper FFG is the core consensus mechanism of Ethereum 2.0, and Casper CBC is another consensus mechanism, which is more complicated than the former.)

Another key decision was to separate Ethereum 2.0 from Ethereum 1.0 as a separate public chain. It makes the protocol design clearer, but also means that the transition from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0 is difficult to manage. We had to choose between the most perfect and the most concise protocol, and we chose the latter.

Q: Who is the biggest opponent of Ethereum now, and who will be the biggest opponent in the future?

Vitalik: Ethereum is a diverse ecosystem that includes many things. If you look at it as a cryptocurrency, it faces competition from other cryptocurrencies. If you look at it as a decentralized application, it faces competition from more and more such applications.

As an infrastructure that undertakes applications such as Dapps (decentralized applications), it is actually difficult to compare with other centralized infrastructures. For example, the blockchain only has 10 million users in total, and the number of users of platforms like Facebook and WeChat is 100 times that of the blockchain. If the blockchain cannot provide the services that users of the centralized platform need, then it cannot be compared. .

Q: Many people question about Ethereum that Ethereum has no other mainstream applications except for ICO. After Ethereum 2.0 goes online, do you think there will be killer applications?

Vitalik: I hope there will be.

Q: So far, what do you think are the three most important projects in Ethereum?

Vitalik: Depends on how you define "important" and "project". For example, Solidity and Vyper (both Ethereum programming languages) are so important that without both, Ethereum would not be usable. But we don't think too much about them.

I think improving privacy is very important to the next step of Ethereum, with security in mind. But you can't easily make a billion dollars in cryptocurrency from these projects unless you're Zooko (Zcash co-founder).

The above is closer to infrastructure. In terms of application projects, the exchange Uniswap is one of my favorites this year. It makes it easier to exchange between cryptocurrencies, and it is a purely decentralized application, which is easier to use than centralized applications. General purpose synthetic assets are interesting and worthy of attention.

Q: You have been trying to downplay your influence on Ethereum. Have you ever worried that your withdrawal will make Ethereum less competitive?

Vitalik: Most likely, it is necessary to have a small group of people working on the project in the early days of the project. But as the project matures, I think a more distributed and decentralized community architecture will become important.

To make Ethereum more and more decentralized does not require me to leave or retire, but requires more outstanding people to join and take on the same important role as me.

Vitalik: The decision-making process of Ethereum 2.0 is relatively centralized. Most are decided by 3-5 core people: myself, Danny, Justin, Hsiao-wei, Dankrad (all Ethereum core developers).

The decision-making process of Ethereum 1.0 is more open, because it is a public chain that is already running. Ethereum 2.0 is also developing towards this stage.

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talk about subversion

"Technology will not change and disrupt government organizations and large corporations, but it will enable them to change."

Q: People always think that the blockchain will subvert everything now. Is blockchain really a "new thing"? What is similar to blockchain in history?

Vitalik: The interesting thing about the blockchain is that it combines the dual characteristics of economic incentives and social movements. People actively contribute to it because they really believe in its value and agree with the idea of ​​decentralization.

Different blockchain projects have different focuses. For example, Zcash focuses on privacy protection, Bitcoin focuses more on value storage, and Ethereum aims to build an infrastructure that allows people to easily build various decentralized applications. But at the same time, these projects have their symbolic tokens, and the price of tokens will go up and down, and if you hold it you definitely want it to go up. Therefore, the combination of these motives determines that it is different from things in history.

Q: Many people claim that companies no longer need to exist in the blockchain world?

Vitalik: Running a company is really different from running Ethereum. The company has a profit-seeking nature, and members of open source projects participate and contribute for free.

Ethereum can be said to be an open source project, but it is not just an open source project. For example, for an open source project, you can easily copy the code ("FORK"), and make a different or even surpass the original version on this basis. But with blockchain, you either follow the rules of the network I built, or you build your own.

To be an enterprise, you don’t need more people to participate in the establishment of the ecosystem. You need to get the business on track quickly and let employees perform their duties. During this period, attracting users and acquiring users is the most important thing; and for open source projects, users can find what they are interested in.

In business, you will formulate a route and guide your team to do things. With open source projects, your control will be much weaker, and you will see community members spontaneously contributing to this ecosystem in various ways. Your community will become more inclusive and diverse as a result.

Q: What will the world look like if cryptocurrency applications become popular in 10-20 years? What will be the biggest change?

Vitalik: I think the financial sector will benefit a lot. At that time, the application of smart contracts will be as simple as we use the Internet today.

I went to Africa 2 months ago, and I asked the local Ethereum community members what everyone is doing with the blockchain now. Their answer is simple. Now there are many Africans who work remotely on the Internet for companies in many developed countries, and they can make a lot of money in this way. Without cryptocurrencies, it is difficult for them to transfer the money they earn back to Africa, and intermediaries like banks will take at least 10%. I find this app simple but meaningful.

Decentralized applications also have potential. Platforms such as media and the sharing economy should not be completely controlled by centralized organizations. Just like the world without the Internet 20 years ago, people could only make software independently. You made it on your computer, and I made it on my computer. Not connected to each other.

Q: Do you think Google will still exist at that time?

Vitalik: Google will definitely exist, but it will adjust its business model and the way it does things. Technology will not change and disrupt government organizations and large corporations, but it will cause them to change.

Vitalik: In the short term, DeFi (decentralized finance) is somewhat overestimated. There are indeed some gratifying achievements in this field, but I think technology has not kept up. People underestimated the risks, especially the serious consequences of smart contract vulnerabilities. For example, last week, a DeFi platform was successfully breached by hackers due to a bug in one of the oracle machines, resulting in a loss of 37 million US dollars.

Underestimated, I think non-financial Dapps will be interesting, such as identity verification. There is a project in Singapore that does academic verification for colleges and universities to ensure that it cannot be faked.

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talk about the world

"Things are changing, and the center of the program is increasingly concentrated in American and Chinese academia."

Q: There is a point of view that blockchain in China, people pay more attention to money than ideas and technology. Do you agree? What do you think of the differences in the development of blockchain in different countries?

Vitalik: In fact, the development of blockchain in the United States and Asia, including mainland China and East Asia, is similar. Because there are a lot of VC and investment funds, large projects can consume these funds to create products. There are not many such cases in Europe, and there are more non-profit hacker cultural spirits.

Of course, the United States and Europe have more similarities. Everyone emphasizes ideas and technologies—ideas include decentralization, open source, freedom, social welfare, etc., and technologies include consensus algorithms, zero-knowledge proofs, and signature schemes. Asia, on the other hand, focuses more on cryptocurrencies, trading and mining.

But recently this is changing. Project centers are concentrated in the academic circles of the United States and China, and independent research projects on technologies such as privacy and sharding have also emerged in China and Asia. At the same time, enterprise adoption of blockchain is progressing steadily across the globe.

Q: So the public chain competition will mainly take place between China and the United States?

Vitalik: I think it should be between the three, the United States, China, and Europe. There are also projects in Europe that are doing very well, such as Tezos (a smart contract platform similar to Ethereum).

The members of the Ethereum Foundation are distributed in these three major regions. If you take Australia into account, it is the four major regions. We try to be geographically decentralized.

Q: Social tensions and political crises are currently occurring in many countries around the world. Is it possible for the blockchain to change the existing political ecology? For example, many people think that its mechanism can achieve organizational autonomy through voting?

Vitalik: If you study economics, you will find that there are actually many problems with the current mainstream anonymous quantitative voting in the blockchain. The biggest problem is that if you have a lot of money, you can take the absolute initiative. On the contrary, people with little financial strength will have no right to participate in decision-making. History is littered with examples of one company acquiring and controlling another company by acquiring a majority stake in that company.

I am also working with Dr. Glen Weyl to design a quadratic voting/funding mechanism to try to solve many problems of anonymous quantitative voting.

Q: Is DAO an attempt of this kind of organizational autonomy? What is the current effect?

For example, if you look at MolochDao, this is a DAO project recently established to help raise funds for public welfare projects on Ethereum. His existence is a good thing, but he has not solved the essential problem of economic incentives. The most direct question is why it is difficult for public goods to raise funds?

Unless there is a centralized organization, everyone in the DAO organization makes their own decisions, and each person can only get a small part of the reward, so everyone has no motivation to participate. MolochDao now has a fund of 2-3 million US dollars, and the 3 million worth of Ether comes from donors who originally wanted to contribute to public welfare. There are also many projects that are very valuable to Ethereum, worth far more than 3 million US dollars. If the DAO itself has money, everything can be said, but if not, financing is a big problem.

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talk about yourself

"The good life is not only about what you have, but also what you lose."

Q: When you have money, what is the most expensive thing you bought?

Vitalik: Not telling you (laughs).

Q: If you don't do Ethereum, what will you do?

Vitalik: I may go deeper into the decentralized economic system, just like the quadratic voting/funding mechanism I mentioned earlier, which I am very interested in besides Ethereum.

From the perspective of society, society actually needs innovations in governance. For example, large-scale group decision-making (decision making) can be solved through some tools. Then there is some research on cryptography, which is not limited to the application of blockchain.

In addition to cryptography and economics, there are other fields that I am very interested in, such as research on life extension, projects dedicated to alleviating world poverty, etc. Since I am not an expert in these fields, I can only support by donation.

Q: Who is the person you admire most in the blockchain world?

Vitalik: Outside of the Ethereum space, I have a lot of respect for Zooko. He is not a "coin pumper" (a coin pumper, referring to someone who only cares about making money with cryptocurrencies) or a narrow-minded extremist, he has deep insights into technology and society. There are not many such people in the blockchain world, and he is one.

If you look at the Twitters of people in the blockchain world, most crypto founders are tweeting more than 70% of their coins. But Zooko is a lot like me, always discussing a wide variety of interests, and he even introduced me to a Twitter account that posts daily WWII summaries. I like this.

I also like Tim Swanson. Although he is a critic, he is willing to communicate with the blockchain world and become friends with those in it.

Q: Which book has had the greatest influence on you?

Vitalik: I recently read a blog—Slate star CodeX, which has a lot of information, like reading 5 books.

Then there is The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hason. The interesting thing about this book is that he discusses the complexity of human motivation. We cannot be honest about our own motivation for doing something.

For example, you may feel that the starting point of what you do is to benefit the world or be meaningful to society. But in the end you will find that the things you do that are good for the world are the things that make you rich and famous. Although we have N kinds of motives at the same time when we do one thing, such as the welfare of all mankind, selfishness, subconscious motives and so on. We also lie to ourselves and think that one of them (good motives) is our real motive for doing it.

Q: What is the underlying theory that you use to understand the world and make decisions?

Vitalik: I think it is not enough to have only one underlying theory, and it will draw a prison for yourself.

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a book, The Hedgehog and the Fox, titled with a quote from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing".

Hedgehogs have a grand theory (like libertarians, atheists) and are happy to extend these theories into many areas, enjoy their simplicity, and express their views with great confidence. Foxes, on the other hand, are skeptical of big-picture theories, insensitive to forecasts, and ready to adjust their thinking to actual events. Organizational behavior professor Philip Tetlock believes foxes are better predictors than hedgehogs.

Q: Besides creating Ethereum, what is the most important thing in your life?

Vitalik: Probably all the text I wrote.

Q: Plato advocated the complete transfer of political domination to a small number of philosophers. what do you think

Vitalik: The king means hard power, and what I prefer to do is soft power.

Q: If you could choose a person in history to exchange your life, who would you choose?

Vitalik: I prefer to be closer to the future and have a higher chance of survival - until we invent life-extending technology to live longer.

If it is the past, I still need to think about it. I'm not sure being a famous person in history is a good idea, famous people don't necessarily have the best lives.

Q: For you, what is a better life?

Vitalik: This is a complex question, and my views have changed a lot in the past few years. Ten years ago, the things I would have wanted were: to be famous, to be respected, to have more money.

But recently my thinking has changed: the good life is not only about what you have, but also what you lose.