Vitalik Buterin on Ethereum's Concerns and Motivation

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What's @VitalikButerin's biggest concern for Ethereum? What keeps him motivated? And what's next non-speculative meta in crypto that he sees? There was an AMA with Vitalik on @farcaster_xyz and 99% of CT missed it. Here are the best questions & answers from his AMA: 🧵

Q: What's your biggest concern for Ethereum's future? Vitalik: The risk of crypto stagnation, loss of privacy and open internet infrastructure, and the big techno-political questions being decided by AI without proper incentives from big actors. (Full answer in screenshot)

Q: What keeps you motivated? Vitalik: The knowledge that our community and the technology that it's building is in a very unique position to do something really valuable in an increasingly complicated world and that a positive outcome here is not automatic...

Q: What book helped you most understand how western culture ended up here? Vitalik: I feel like books are overrated for this and real-world experience with cultures is more underrated. I don't just mean going to and living in different places, I also even mean...

Q: What are some non tech related hobbies of yours? Vitalik: "The past week I was poking into Toki Pona, we'll see what it is next week :D"

On L1 complexity: Vitalik: There's a counter-movement toward more standardization across L2s, including: * Account abstraction (ERC 4337) * The L2 EVM effort * Standardizing the cross-domain wallet experience, including recovery * Possible L1-enshrined ZK-EVM

On his favorite places: Vitalik: I've definitely become less of a "city person" lately, but cities he likes staying in: * Singapore * Taipei * Vienna * Toronto * Ithaca, NY

On prediction markets: Vitalik: "They're slowly getting there! Polymarket has been making quite a bit of progress lately, it seems to have a better combination of business development talent and crypto talent than any of the previous attempts."

Q: what do you think about most of the time? Vitalik: "For the last week or two, thinking through what my opinions on the various AI-related issues are (including x-risk etc) and how/if the ethereum community could productively engage on them."

Q: What's on his reading list? Vitalik: Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity Book by Bill Gifford and Peter Attia

On climate change: Vitalik: Anything that might do something like this to the world is really worth worrying about. 2x cut in GDP to the world's already-poorest countries is awful, not to mention more direct human consequences...

On Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto: Vitalik: I see crypto as being in part about being the sector of tech that tries to think not just about consumer utility, but [...[preserving freedom and openness and ability for regular people around the world...

Q: What do you think is the next meta that’s *not* 51%+ speculation related? Vitalik: I do hope that Farcaster and Lens and co become as big as Meta one day. Note: I'm actually writing a blog post about Farcaster and Lens so make sure to subscribe!