Welcome to @vitalik.eth, co-founder of Ethereum! He’s kindly agreed to do an AMA. Reply with your questions. :)
If you were to participate in an ETHGlobal hackathon this weekend, what would you build and why?
Thanks for this, V! If decentralized social networking protocols like Farcaster achieve true internet scale, what becomes different about the world?
@vitalik.eth What keeps you motivated?
what's the most interesting consumer crypto use case
One more.. What are the traits you’ve observed that make for a successful crypto founder/leader?
In a future full of embedded wallets, do people have: 1) Primarily a new address for every new app, 2) Primarily one address across many apps, or 3) A fairly even spectrum?
What is your biggest worry or concern when it comes to Ethereum's future?
Hi Vitalik. What other social projects do you use? thank you.
@vitalik.eth what do you think about most of the time?
You have said that the goal of the Ethereum protocol design is to minimize L1 protocol complexity and maximize robustness and resiliency Lets consider that just in the case of sharding vs rollups Obviously sharding is a lot more complicated for the L1 protocol.
What do you think is needed for identity and reputation to become widely adopted by crypto-natives?
How do you define success, both for yourself and for Ethereum?
Ok last one I swear… If you had young kids, how would you educate them?
If you could relaunch The DAO today, what would you do differently?
As I come to grips with the limitations of SNARKs for mechanisms that have a mix of private and public data, I have a question: what do you think about FHE? Do you think the advances of the last 2 years will lead to a Moore’s law in practical code, like we saw post Groth16 or not?
What is your impression of where DVT technology is currently? And would building a public goods funding layer on top seem feasible? Would love to chat at ZuConnect!
Given the debates on protocol enshrinement, are you in favor of a minimal on-chain governance tool for everyone to express their preference? Like a credibly neutral "vibes" signal to the EF & client teams (sybil challenges notwithstanding)?
Hi @vitalik.eth Wondering if you have any thoughts on “ticketing”. Ticketing is generally considered a fruitful usecase for crypto as a whole and for millions the ticket will be the first interaction with distributed ledger tech. Keen on learning if you have any specific thoughts on this industry.
What is something that continually surprises you in life?
In the endgame, where do you think Ethereum's fees will come from primarily? Settlement, data publishing ("DA"), execution, or something else?
Hi @vitalik.eth what are your thoughts on digital identity and the role that ethereum plays into that?
Will we ever approach the matter of decentralised Ethereum governance with the same vim and initiatives as seen with scaling?
@vitalik.eth you've often discussed succinct onchain security on mobile devices, but what unaddressed challenges did you find in offline mobile security after experiments like zuzalu? are you planning anything further with network states? is there a way for others to coordinate shared-security schelling points?
What are some non tech related hobbies of yours?
@vitalik.eth do you still have the Bitcoin tshirt that you bought for 8.5 BTC? Excerpt from The Cryptopians by @laurashin
What do you think of Uniswap's decision to add a fee to their UI? What implications does it have for other swap UIs?
@vitalik.eth What was your first computer? Which games did you play (or write!) on it?
@vitalik.eth What do you think about the Ethereum Event Gardeners initiative (docs.ethevents.club)? My vision is something like Cat Herders, but focused on events. Create voluntary standards and spread inclusivity, diversity and open access. As public good, non-profit, without commercialization.
What do you find interesting right now with mobile/EVM?
Is there a specific technology you think would most help us to get to a "UX of the Future" (fewest clicks to create a complex and affordable onchain result without compromising crypto values) that you'd like to see more people working on?
Thoughts on uniswap’s newly introduced fee? Do you think other players will follow or does this out uniswap at a disadvantage? Do you think this good/bad for the ecosystem long term?
Two questions: 1) Favorite piece of literature you’re reading right now? 2) Biggest piece of advice for young tech entrepreneurs?
Do sites like L2Beat meaningfully impact legitimacy for projects?
I’m a little bit of a broken record on this on WC, but I’d like to know his sense of urgency and mitigation thoughts on quantum supremacy w/respect to Ethereum, as I think it’s closer than commonly anticipated.
What do you think is the next meta that’s *not* 51%+ speculation related?
thanks for doing this @vitalik.eth what’s the best piece of writing you read recently?
@vitalik.eth would you like to come to Scotland to play golf at LinksDAO’s course we purchased? How’s your short game?
Would you be open to an on-chain post-quantum encrypted interview where we predict the future?
You've been writing about futarchy for nearly a decade, and in that time, some teams, including GnosisDAO, have experimented with it. Have these trials met your expectations? How can future attempts be improved?
What book helped you most understand how western culture ended up at this point (widespread liberalism + democracy + capitalism)?
In the last cycle, we saw a lot of movement/noise on Ethereum, fueled by a lot of speculation (and mediocrity), but will there ever be a concerted campaign by you, the EF, and other dominant entities to pursue a more productive and net-positive agenda for crypto(*retail users) via Ethereum, or do we let markets decide?
1. If you had to guess: In five years, how many rollups with significant usage will there be? (1,10,100,1000?) 2. It's been almost a year since you wrote "What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me". What's your updated list? 3. What's something in Ethereum you wish more people were working on?
@vitalik.eth could you share what you think about network states and what communities you think founders could be building for in 2024?
hey vitalik, the new version of PoolTogether is launching tomorrow, aiming to be the permissionless, autonomous ethereum prize layer. what are your thoughts on layering incentives to drive both savings and community engagement on ethereum?
@vitalik.eth biggest learnings / takeaways from Zuzalu? Is it a viable replicatible model for irl network state or more of an experiment on the path to finding one?
What did you think of Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto? How you would frame crypto's relationship an optimistic, accelerationist outlook? https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
How often do you feel stress and how long of a walk or work does it normally take to fade away?
What is your favorite city (or place) to walk around? How has becoming a public figure changed that experience?
do you worry about ETH being attacked my the SEC and you being the founder and leader?
@vitalik.eth who are your favorite people for smart/interesting crypto takes?
As we deal with increased problems on web2 social, as well as with deepfake/ bots crowding all timelines, how do you see farcaster’s role in: - verifying/attesting to content that’s non AI generated - giving users options to switch front ends (clients) while keeping the same social graph
@vitalik.eth what do you think is the greatest existential threat to traditional finance and late stage capitalism?
When the day arrives that most rollup chains become so successful and valuable that they no longer require Ethereum, what becomes of the rollup-centric vision and Ethereum as a protocol? Assuming we want these rollups to be successful.
what's your perspective on the future of humanity? are you hopeful for the future of our species?
@vitalik.eth - i'm curious if you've had involvement in crypto legal regulation?
How do you view the current decentralized social media landscape, specifically comparing Farcaster and Nostr?
What’s your thoughts or plans on optimizing EVM for faster (or speculative) execution and other local tasks? Caching, pipelining, hyper threading, etc. A single-threaded state machine as a foundation for global adoption of rollups seems like it could be more optimized, but maybe this will have impact on fees?
@vitalik.eth which country/countries is doing the best job regulating crypto right now and why?
@vitalik.eth as an erudite, eloquent & intellectual spokesperson for the new way of thinking about the internet. How would you communicate to (for lack of a better phrase) to normals about the future which is based on the ideological system based on eth. The world equate crypto to grift, a serious communication problem
Hey @vitalik.eth, what is the role of Multichain in the future of blockchain? GM
Hello Vitalik, what is your favorite NFT that you own?
What kind of note taking system/stack do you use? (e.g. physical notebooks/pencils, notion, obsidian, HackMD etc...)
thanks for doing this @vitalik.eth! What’s your favorite tech related book (i.e. covering a company, computer scientist, etc.)? Also your all time favorite book(s) in general?
If you were to rebuild Ethereum from scratch today. Is there anything you’d change or do differently?
second question: which of the nakamoto challenges (https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/announcement/introducing-the-nakamoto-challenge-addressing-the-toughest-problems-in-crypto/) occupies your attention the most? do you feel that the current goals of the core development are sufficiently occupied for the foreseeable future?
Scroll recently launched the mainnet of its zkEVM chain; however, because it needs to closely mirror the classic EVM on Ethereum, it’s unlikely that we’ll witness innovative design concepts and experiments, such as privacy features, at the execution level there. What are your thoughts on these limitations?
How many rollups on L2, L3, and above do you think will exist on top of Ethereum in 5 years? 10 years?
How would you build Ethereum today if you could start from scratch with no technical debt?
how do you see the future of DeFi and smart contract security given that we can’t prove code correctness (in general)?
what's your favorite memory from the early days of Bitcoin?
@vitalik.eth Do the trolls ever get to you, or is your skin really as thick at it seems and are you as calm and cool on the inside as you are on the outside?
Over the last two years, what are the two things about the Ethereum ecosystem you've changed your mind most on: - which was the thing you were most positive about you are now most disillusioned with? - which was the thing you were most skeptical about you are now most excited to see?
How do you manage to keep up to date with web3 news and projects ?
Yo @vitalik.eth, I think light clients are really neat because I don’t have a full node to run (yet), and would love to use a light clients for my day-to-day interactions. What is preventing light clients like the portal network clients for example from being production ready?
what have you read, watched, or listened to lately that has most inspired or challenged your thinking?
Great One....ask him that , why cant I Built farcaster in ETH ?
if you were to try to get to the most basic layer, what are you motivated by?
what is the most important problem for humanity to solve in the next 5 years that seems unlikely to be solved or meaningfully progress at steady state?
What have you changed about your life and how you operate day to day in the last year (if anything)?
where do you get the most energy? when do you feel the most alive?
We’ve seen how Proof-of-Stake has been approached across various blockchain projects and it’s clear that it’s possible for end-users to stake without forfeiting custody or needing to risk their principal stake to slashing and other penalties. Why doesn’t Ethereum improve its PoS system using these learnings?
What do you think the biggest opportunities are at the intersection of AI and crypto?
Do you think future humans will be recognizable to a modern human in 50 years? 100?
What’s the most stressful & chaotic moment you’ve had since the launch of ethereum? How did you get through it?
@vitalik.eth What are some opinions/positions that have changed for you in recent memory? (Let's say in the past 3-6 months, if any?)
what are the most important qualities to look for in a spouse?
Do you think the endgame for rollups is to use the evm? If not, what does your dream execution environment look like?
@vitalik.eth What do you imagine a perfect web3 social network would look like?
It feels like Nouns is poking at the edges of new organization design with a community directed treasury controlled by token holders; are there other onchain organization designs that you would like to see tried?
What do you think about L2 which is now everywhere? almost every month a new L2 is born
@vitalik.eth what music are you listening to these days?
if you could have everyone in the world consider one question for 30 seconds, what would it be? same question for the 1000 richest people in the world?
Have you tried Nostr? If not, why haven’t you? And if you have, what did you think of it?
What ideas that didn't end up taking off from the early days of the Ethereum ecosystem would you like people to take another shot at building now?
Hi @vitalik.eth what made your favorite community event special for you?
which Greek man is better at what they do? giannis antetokounmpo or @gakonst ?
What are your thoughts on improving bridge security for L2s by completely eliminating bridge custody risks through the use of Floo Transactions (EIP pending)? More on Floo Transactions, a Proof-of-Burn mechanism for L1-L2 bridging.👇 https://warpcast.com/emmanuel/0x1a8a608f
Where would the non technical mind be most valuable in crypto?
@vitalik.eth if you were farcaster dictator for a day, what's something you'd prioritize that we're currently not doing?
@vitalik.eth If you are giving commencement speech at Waterloo next year, what would be the message to the students?
Which is the weakness part of Ethereum and which will be the solution for change it in a strength.🦾
hi @vitalik.eth what are your thoughts on L2s breaking away from EVM-equivalence to give users new features like native account abstraction?
Who is someone you’ve never met but would like to have a conversation with today?
Do you practice a meditation technique? What is your view on meditation?
@vitalik.eth what does ethereum alignment mean to you (if you even subscribe to the term)? should teams be thinking about that in their roadmap, esp as they go for bigger infra swings?
what is your favorite type / style / brand of green tea?
What’s been the most interesting or surprising thing about this current crypto winter?
Good news: stablecoins are taking off (we finally have "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System") Bad news: much of it's being captured by centralized actors In your view, what's the goal state for stablecoins on ethereum?
@vitalik.eth — do you think any non-technical areas of study are important / valuable and if so why?
How would you encourage folks who are building with all their might but feel like they’re not making any progress/making a difference?
do you believe that we can get to mass adoption with the current model of “one mistake and you lose everything”?
Vitalik, really enjoyed your appearance on GreenPilled podcast with @owocki what do you think of the current state of the ReFi/Web3 impact space?
@vitalik.eth What is your favorite book? What are you currently reading?
how do you think about TPS compared to tradfi? How does crypto compete
I love ethereum, but the constraints of the EVM are becoming more and more apparent to me. If you could with a magic wand change something what would it be?
@vitalik.eth Where could the Ethereum community be more ambitious?
How might Ethereum interact with or support humanity in interacting with AGI?
@vitalik.eth What do u think about Distributed Validator Technology (DVT), ? ✌️
Do you see Ethereum's main use case as a currency or do you see Ethereum being added to the modern tech stack(the same way it seems AI will be/is a big part of the modern tech stack)?
- what are some consumer products you have expected/hope to be replaced by protocols? - do you think aliens exist? visited earth? - if you had to settle down in one existing country, where would it be?
@vitalik.eth why do you think crypto-based prediction markets haven’t gained much traction yet? do you still think they have potential and what do you think is needed for them to take off?
@vitalik.eth out of all decentralized social apps, you chose farcaster, why farcaster?
Whats happening next for Ethereum? My question is L1 scalability still a thing in roadmap?
@vitalik.eth 10 years from now, what are the most valuable things onchain that are not currently onchain?
What do you think about using zk as co-processors for Ethereum? I'm especially interested to find out about your thoughts on zkml and any interesting use cases that might bring to Ethereum?
You've talked in the past about transitioning Ethereum protocol features to starks for post quantum security. Do you still think starks are the best path forward or does some kind of LWE based snark seem like it could be practical?
@vitalik.eth have you thought about minting your writings, diagrams and EIPs?
@vitalik.eth regarding experimental currencies with currency issuance setups only possible on blockchain rails — a la CirclesUBI/CirclesEntropy — What most excites you about these experiments? & What’s one thing (if any) that concerns you about these experiments?
@vitalik.eth There were some contentious conversations about EIP-1890 and EIP-2025 back in 2019. Have you read anything since then about block rewards funding capture or more generally public goods funding capture that you agreed with?
If you had a time machine and you could change one thing in the development of Ethereum over the years, what would it be?
Justin Drake had talked a lot about one shot signatures. What role do you think quantum cryptography will play in the future of Ethereum or decentralised systems generally? Any other standouts that quantum cryptography is capable of that classical it's not?
What's r ur thoughts on Bitcoin? Do you think it'll become a widely adopted currency/reserve currency? Where do you see BTC in the broader crypto ecosystem long-term?
How do you feel about the state of security of zk / validity proof systems today? How do we get to a point where we can trust these systems to be hardened enough to remove training wheels?
What are the best examples to date of onchain governance done right?
@vitalik.eth democracies are suffering and authoritarism is gaining ground. What do you think would be a concrete action that would have a direct positive impact to make "democracies-great-again"?
👋 @vitalik.eth thanks for sharing your time with us tonight. Do you think crypto and related protocols can serve as Internet-native bill of rights? If so, what rights + protocols are we missing?
Thanks @dwr.eth @vitalik.eth : how do u see progress on light client, e.g. portal network or likes, is the progress meeting expectations or not, if not, what ppl can do (researchers, engineers, L2 teams, etc) to speed it up or increase its adoption?
Ah, looks like I might be too late, but I'll leave this anyway.... favourite garden(s)?
Would you get my poo poo pee pee tech? https://zora.co/collect/zora:0xcbac997a434d3d5047a4bbe400535bd380e46f1a/1
@vitalik.eth whats some advice that you hear often or that’s considered obviously correct, but that you think is wrong? I’m especially interested if you think of something in the startup cities / network states space
Have you given any thought to interplanetary decentralized systems and whether Ethereum should aim to support that kind of high latency communication?
@vitalik.eth it seems like the number of mainnet execution layer nodes (somewhat faithful approximation to unique node runners) is decreasing over time. Is there enough reasons for it to go up instead?
What analogies would you use to talk about web3 security for users to people who are new to the space?
what is the relevance of blockchains in the context of ai agents
LES 2.0 is in the works. I love what they are doing, it is actually going to be usable this time around! With exception of historical blocks, aim is to provide extremely limited amount historical blocks via LES What are you thoughts on LES 2.0 in general & number of blocks in particular? https://shorturl.at/otAE4
@vitalik.eth can I have your fid so I can resell it for lots of money one day
@vitalik.eth, do you watch anime? If so, what’s your favorite?
@vitalik.eth you've done groundbreaking work in computer science by inventing a general-purpose blockchain do u think history will remember u as one of the greats?
Would you love an alternative to Umbra Cash that is 99% cheaper and 99% more private?
When talking about adoption, what would you prioritize and why? 1. Innovative use cases? Or 2. Fiat On/Off-ramp infrastructure?
@vitalik.eth what type of music do you enjoy? Also what’s your favorite anime and video game?
Are you interested in recent advances in recursive zkp - I mean folding schemes (like Nova IVC/PCD)? Do you think folding shemes can be organically integrated with Ethereum? What new application scenarios do you expect it to have?
Favorite SciFi book? Or at least favorite piece or fiction?
@vitalik.eth are you excited for the Devconnect, then why?
@vitalik.eth I think you're one of the best at "leadership through blogging". What can you share about your process for writing essays? How long do they usually take? Do you enjoy writing them or do it out of necessity?
Salute @vitalik.eth! Whichever interests you the most: 1. Does harm reduction work? 2. Where do we go when we die? 3. Have you used any alternative keyboard layouts?
What is the most unexpected technology, event, culture, or catastrophe to have happened/emerged in crypto in the past 5 years?
If you could change one thing about Canadian policy to make it a more friendly jurisdiction for crypto, what would that be?
@vitalik.eth What’s one opinion or thesis you hold that most of the Ethereum community would disagree with you on? Why do you hold it?
The future of Account Abstraction in the Multichain Landscape: How users can manage their keys with less effort.
What Eth functionality do you think hasn’t been properly described for non-crypto folk yet?
If you were to bind the token you most desire in this world to a soul, whose soul would it be and why?
@vitalik.eth What ethereum product do you think has the best UX and what about it does it for you?
Ever tot of letting going reclusive mode? Or its still much a long battle for you. All for sake for Decentralization. For Humanity.
What are your thoughts on physical world decentralisation, do we need a strategy to navigate both macro & micro in this what it seems an ever growing trend of resentment, ignorance, artificial division, distrust and even hatred, especially among newer nation states with forming borders.
when is proto-dunk sharding expected and how will it affect the long-term development of Ethereum
The second question is related to regulation and kyc. how Vitalik sees regulation in defi, what can we expect from it and how does he feel about the recent news about kyc in uniswap4
Here comes a purple love monster, so nice to meet we here in Farcaster💜.@vitalik.eth
There are some questions here as well: https://warpcast.com/dwr.eth/0x3c9b5dd3
@vitalik.eth How Ethereum could help to mitigate wars?
If something happened to you, who do you think would become a new informal leader of Ethereum community?
Have you been keeping up with the latest aging research? What are your thoughts on MPTR? @vitalik.eth
what opportunities are there for people to ensure self sovereignty over their assets rather than crypto becoming the next incarnation of the previous system?
What advice did your parents or family give you that you have come to recognise as wise, after maybe disregarding it for a period of time?
@vitalik.eth Do you think Bitcoin will be hacked again or have they secured it fully now
@vitalik.eth what are your thoughts on the promise of staking-based truth-finding mechanisms for ambiguous and contentious topics (e.g. “Is aspartame carcinogenic?”) Kleros for example Thinking of https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1029903234226216960
Heeyy @vitalik.eth , what type of music do you like? :)
@vitalik.eth I think a protocols value comes partially from the number of quality developers participating in the ecosystem. What can be done to onboard more Web2 Devs into Solidity & Web3? 🤓
@vitalik.eth Do you think most people will be their own bank with crypto or will they still use intermediaries (like traditional banks)?
@vitalik.eth What initiatives you are taking to keep Ethereum decentralised after POS upgrade? You must be aware that It’s theoretically decentralised but in reality it’s not? So I would like to know your point of view on this?
yo @vitalik.eth how are ya? can you share some of your favourite privacy tools and ongoing, applied privacy developments in crypto you keep an eye on?
what do you feel are the most trivial, yet important, world problems ethereum can solve?
The future development of Ethereum goes far beyond what we have today.
GM @vitalik.eth! We’ve got a portrait for you, crafted by an abstractionist artist featured in the NY Times and Forbes. Hope you enjoy it👍🏻 Currently we are building a social game promoting Web3 culture to Web2 gamers and audience, would you mind we putting this portrait as one of the game characters? Thanks!
Hey @vitalik.eth are you coming to Devconnect which will happen in Istanbul next month? Because I heard some rumors that the event would be canceled due to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
If there's one thing at the intersection of Crypto x AI that excites you, what would it be?
Thanks @vitalik.eth This AMA is special. What are a couple of your hopes for kids to learn as kids today, just in case we adults don’t fuck up the world too much for them to survive and thrive?
@vitalik.eth is it possible for a network state to have all 3? if so, how? if not, which 2 would you choose?
@vitalik.eth I'm curious about your alternate life paths. If not Ethereum, what would you be working on? If not crypto, what would you be working on?
When will Ethereum (crypto) become easy for anyone to use?
@vitalik.eth Not timely, much like my cast. Green tea + red wine = The Tipsy Dragon? Or Green tea + red wine = The Green Vine? 😂🖖
1) what is that one most popular lie, that everyone is believing about Crypto but not you ?
@vitalik.eth do you see eth payments taking off somewhere (defined as double digit % of payments made with eth)? What needs to be true for that to happen?
do you still play world of warcraft? have you had that level of fun playing a web3 game? which one? what was what this tech enabled on it that was new?
@vitalik.eth Payment remains a prominent and promising use case for cryptocurrency, with significant potential for mass adoption. However, when utilizing the current rollup infrastructure, it becomes challenging to achieve decentralization and privacy due to the involvement of a sequencer (a centralized party).
What are some ways to do content moderations on Ethereum? e.g. preventing users storing links to child pornography in smart contracts?
Oh god, you invited @vitalik.eth join an AMA??? Amazing!
Ethereum