Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued that Web3’s original vision of a more open Internet stack had “more or less faded into the background.”
In a lengthy blog post, Buterin identified rising transaction fees as the “number one cause” of Web3’s departure from its ideals. He claimed that ENS is the only non-financial application being used at scale, opening an “ideological rift” between the cryptocurrency world and non-blockchain decentralization proponents who now see cryptocurrencies as a “distraction.”
Buterin also argued that “few people are talking about consumer cryptocurrency payments,” and that if people use cryptocurrencies to trade or save money, they will have to use “centralized means, such as exchange accounts or stablecoin trading.” “This is often done through,” he claimed. USDT In ~ tron.
Buterin said rising transaction fees have excluded all but the ‘degen gamblers’ from using blockchain. This is because ‘they are the only audience left willing to pay’ when transaction fees soar. He said that when a niche community dominates a blockchain’s user base, “this adjusts public perception and the internal culture of the cryptocurrency space,” leading to negative outcomes.
But it’s not all bad news. Buterin pointed to positive developments over the past year, including expansion solutions such as rollups, the ERC-4337 account abstraction standard, and light clients. Ethereum.
He also focuses on privacy-preserving solutions like Railway and Nocturne, and devotes a large portion of the essay to zero-knowledge proofs, a “very powerful new tool” used to prove something known without directly exposing the known information.
“The programmability of zero-knowledge proofs means that we can overcome the false binary of “anonymous but dangerous” and “secure with KYC” and achieve privacy and various kinds of authentication and verification at the same time,” Buterin said. wrote: He pointed to use cases such as Zupass, a direct authentication system that allows for anonymous voting and identity verification.
Buterin has previously advocated for a “privacy pool” that would use zk proofs to ensure users are not using criminal blockchain addresses while maintaining the anonymity of transactions.
Not only do we build buildings; Ethereum’s technology stack, Buterin emphasized the importance of a “social layer” that “powerfully reinforces value where pure incentives cannot.” He pointed to the challenge of integrating “degen gamblers” who came to the cryptocurrency ecosystem with a desire to get rich, but turned into “zealous believers” in the ideals of Web3 and decentralization.
He believes this can be achieved through a mix of incentives, community, “strict norms of neutrality, open source, and censorship resistance.”
Buterin said that for Ethereum to succeed, it requires more than just a vision for the technology stack. of society It’s the part of the stack that allows you to build the technology stack in the first place.”