The crypto universe has changed a lot since 2013, when Vitalik Buterin wrote the first white paper on what would become blockchain Ethereum
. Initially built on the idea of maximum decentralization, digital assets today struggle to keep this ethos front and center. According to Buterin, this problem stems from the speculative madness surrounding cryptos and NFTs.
Critical of the greed of investors that plagues the world of crypto and NFTs, Vitalik Buterin would like us to return to investments centered around the utility of digital assets.
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Cryptocurrencies: from utility to greed
If you ask Vitalik Buterin today to describe his feelings about the “cryptosphere”, he will probably answer you with ambivalent feelings. Pride, but also fear. Pride in having set up an ecosystem that makes it possible to respond to unbanked people, to enable entrepreneurs to build new products or offer innovative services. But fear, too, of the use of digital assets for less glorious purposes: money laundering, tax evasion and unchallenged reign of profitability.
According to Buterin, this attraction for speculation and easy money relegates the initial aspirations of blockchain technologies to the background. Where many see cryptos and NFTs as a way to get rich, Buterin continues to hope that Ethereum and other blockchains can be the scene of socio-political experiments like urban planning or universal basic income.
The place of crypto in geopolitical issues
The war between Ukraine and Russia will have had the merit of putting the principles of utility of cryptocurrency back at the center of the chessboard. Used as a donation tool by Zelensky’s government, digital assets have also enabled fugitive Ukrainians to have access to means of payment and an alternative to banking institutions that are sometimes closed. Many experts have also warned of the role that digital assets could play in the sanctions against Russia, recalling that the primary philosophy of Bitcoin or Ethereum was that of decentralization.
In an email to TIME, Vitalik Buterin clarifies this thought, not without scratching the NFTs in passing:
“One of the positive things about the situation over the past three weeks is that it has reminded many people in the crypto space that the ultimate goal of crypto is not to play games with images of monkeys worth millions of dollars, but to do things that have meaningful effects in the real world”.
The NFTs take it for their rank!
If there is one area that Buterin does not have in his heart, it is that of NFTs. However, the co-founder of Ethereum had followed the development of this new market segment with a certain form of enthusiasm. For the Ethereum blockchain, the emergence of NFTs has brought both good and bad news. Good because the rise of non-fungible tokens has helped boost Ethereum’s price. Bad because the volume of transactions has also played its part in the congestion of the network… and therefore in the increase in transaction costs .
If Buterin does not seem to question the founding principles of NFTs, he seems to regret their use. And when he talks about the Bored Ape Yacht Club which sometimes trades for several million euros, the idea of too much centralization is never far away. The investment of consortia and other venture capital companies in this market, the emergence of “private club” type projects will probably not encourage the computer scientist to review his copy.
However, the vast majority of NFT projects today are based on the Ethereum blockchain. If Solana is gradually catching up, Ethereum remains the leader in this market, as in that of decentralized finance.
Source: TIME
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