Vitalik Buterin is worried about Ethereum, here's how the community responds

Published at: April 4, 2022

Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum (ETH), recently expressed his concerns about Ethereum’s future. However, attendees of the recent ETHDubai event voiced mixed sentiments over Buterin’s talk on crypto’s perils.

In an interview, Ethereum’s founder pointed out some of his worries regarding the platform. This includes the platform being populated by players who are only after profit and deviate from the original vision of an egalitarian platform. "If we don’t exercise our voice, the only things that get built are the things that are immediately profitable,” Buterin said.

Commenting on Buterin’s woes, Sergej Kunz, the co-founder of 1inch Network, expressed that he disagrees highly with the Ethereum founder. Kunz said that while there are “scam projects” that try to get money from retail investors, there are also good projects who need really funding and that they can get that funding from venture capitals who are trying to make a profit. Citing 1inch as an example, Kunz explained that:

“We see angels and investors. They helped us. They gave us money to fully concentrate, to work on this startup. [...] We work to improve the space, to create something unique and improve the whole financial system.”

Following this, Aleksei Pupyshev, a developer at GTON Capital, believes that there should be a balance between profit and non-profit initiatives within the space. He thinks that while there are many projects supporting charity and solving health-related issues, rewards can motivate people to come into the industry.

“We need more motivation for people who are exploring, and they are exploring by investing.”

On the other hand, Siva S, the CTO of Ozone, explained that the problem is tied to the growth of the platform. According to Siva, as the crypto ecosystem grows, more traditional finance players who are profit-focused will come in and want "some sort of control." However, he believes that as long as core concepts like consensus stay relevant, developers will still be happy to build on top of Ethereum.

Meanwhile, Raullen Chai, the co-founder of IoTeX, shares the same concerns as Buterin. According to Chai, he’s also worried if the crypto pioneers can stick to their visions for their platforms. He explained:

“I do have the same concern here. I'm not sure if like the crypto OG folks can stick to their vision. I hope they could, and I don't see a fix for this problem, unfortunately.”

Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum also expressed his belief in decentralization in a recent talk at the Binance Blockchain Week event. In his keynote speech, the Cardano founder said that "if you’re just here to make money, you lose all the things that make the technology special.”