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.
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