Vitalik Buterin proposes reviving the ‘cypherpunk’ ethos in Ethereum

The Ethereum blockchain must revive ‘cypherpunk’ revolution, which was conceived for the network at its dawn, according to Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the second-largest cryptocurrency.

Make Ethereum cypherpunk againhttps://t.co/qEiOcZLEeg

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 28, 2023

According to him, Ethereum was originally conceived as a ‘public decentralized general-purpose hard drive’ that could use peer-to-peer messaging and file storage. However, this vision began to fade in 2017 with a shift toward the protocol’s financialization.

Decentralization, open participation, resistance to censorship and trusted neutrality are among the ideals of the ‘cypherpunk’ ethos that Buterin wants to see in Ethereum’s future.

He noted that rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, account abstraction and second-generation privacy-preserving solutions have become more widespread and could support some of these values.

“Inside the crypto ecosystem, it is quite possible to build things that do not align with these goals,” Buterin acknowledged, hinting at some projects.

For example, the creation of a highly centralized layer protected by multisignatures with no plans to alter, or an NFT ecosystem where tokens are stored on a centralized website rather than on a decentralized data platform such as IPFS.

“Resisting this pressure is hard, but if we do not do this, we risk losing the crypto ecosystem’s unique value and recreating a clone of the existing Web 2.0 ecosystem with added inefficiency and inconvenience,” the developer emphasised.

Buterin also said he was impressed by some developments aimed at solving the industry’s biggest problems. For example, DEX provided enhanced safeguards after hacks of centralized exchanges, while Cowswap, Flashbots Protect and MEV Blocker helped curb “sandwich attacks” on Ethereum users.

Earlier, Buterin noted the undeniable progress of rollups, highlighting Arbitrum’s move to the ‘first phase’. In the wake of the statement, tokens ARB and OP rose by more than 15%.

In late November, the Ethereum cofounder released an essay “My Techno-Optimism,” in which he shared his views on the impact of new developments, notably blockchain and artificial intelligence, on the development of human civilization.