Original Article Title: "Conversation with Ethereum's Vitalik: The World Shouldn't Fall into an AI Dominated Totalitarian Kingdom"

Original Article Author: Zhang Xiaojun, Tencent News "Horizon"

Our world is currently being impacted by multiple emerging technological forces.

The first force is the artificial intelligence represented by OpenAI, which is evolving into the mainstream of the world's technological ideology. The second force is Web3, encryption technology, and blockchain. Over the past two years, these two forces have become increasingly disparate.

In November 2024, we saw Ethereum's founder Vitalik Buterin, standing on the other side of cryptography, gazing into artificial intelligence. In his eyes, artificial intelligence intervenes in human emotions, thoughts, and even the subconscious in a seemingly equal, intimate, and harmless manner, and through this, it may construct an unprecedented powerful center of authority. A technological revolution will drive the "power game" that concerns the fate of all mankind.

Buterin is the spiritual leader of Web3, and the Ethereum he founded ranks second in the industry, second only to Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto has never appeared, Buterin has become the spokesperson in this field. His experiences have also added a legendary color to him.

Buterin was born in 1994, his parents divorced when he was young, and he immigrated to Canada from Russia. He dropped out of university at the age of 19 to create Ethereum, and in his early twenties, he became the youngest crypto billionaire. In China, people refer to him as "V God". He just celebrated his 30th birthday this year.

Buterin is always trying to elucidate a kind of technological philosophical view. In his understanding, AI and Crypto represent two underlying philosophies. AI technology is more centralized and powerful, intending to make human civilization and technology stronger; in contrast, Crypto advocates a decentralized, egalitarian philosophy of survival. Unlike AI, which occupies a few strongholds worldwide, Crypto's bases are dispersed globally, and even more adaptable to remote areas. In the words of Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel: "Crypto is libertarian and AI is communist."

"Now everyone is chatting with ChatGPT as if chatting with a friend. But in 10 years, everyone will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. If your AI has no privacy, then you have no privacy at all, including no privacy of thought," Buterin said. "If it is centralized, it means that a big company can read your thoughts—that is very dangerous."

The lifestyle of Bitcoin seems to align with its advocated technological philosophy. Our meeting took place in a simple office space, scheduled for 8 a.m., and he arrived at 7:40 a.m. He came alone, carrying a khaki canvas bag with a cat pattern under his arm, containing a Dell laptop he bought for distributed artificial intelligence. He wore a plastic watch with a cat motif on his wrist. He always appears in this outfit, shuttling between various Web3 communities.

Buterin speaks 6 languages, with English, Russian, and Chinese being his best. This conversation was conducted in Chinese.

He still appears somewhat green and nerdy, diligently searching his mind for suitable Chinese characters to express complex technical jargon. The staff poured him a cup of tea, and he kept rubbing the small tag on the tea bag with his hand, folding it up and putting it down, then picking it up, unfolding it, and folding it up again...

If one day, the ultimate power of artificial intelligence or "Big Brother" were to destroy humanity, would your Crypto Kingdom come to the rescue?

"This question is quite complex," Buterin said.

Below is the full conversation text. (For readability, the author has done some text optimization)

Photo taken by the author on-site, featuring Vitalik Buterin

「LLM is very powerful」

《Prospect》: In your blog post "The end of my childhood," commemorating your 30th birthday, you said: "One thing about modern artificial intelligence that fascinates me is that it allows us to participate in guiding human interactions' hidden variables in a different way mathematically and philosophically: AI can make 'resonance' clear and easily readable." Can you talk about your view of AI?

Buterin: Philosophers especially like to describe what humans are using analogies with the latest technology: What is a human. 100-200 years ago, we had an industrial civilization, with early robots that had no brains but had the first steps in automation. They said humans are machines. Recently, people are interested in quantum technology, and many ask if the human brain is also quantum? I don't think so. How do humans think? Sometimes, it's nonsense. But people will think this way: What does a human have in common with a computer? What does a human have in common with a factory? What does a human have in common with an animal? With this, they understand humanity.

Now, the latest technology is the new generation of artificial intelligence technology: LLM (Large Language Model). We look at the concept of LLM, which is very complex, but it is very powerful—it can do many things, and we don't know how it does them—it is a black box.

The difference between LLM and regular programs is: with a regular program, if you randomly delete a line of code, the entire codebase may crash, as it is particularly fragile; with LLM, if you make small changes, it won't affect the core functionality, and if you change just a little bit, the output will change just a little bit.

Therefore, LLM is particularly like humans, animals, it is at the biological life level.

Anthropic is conducting research, with the goal of examining what each parameter represents in a relatively small LLM. They have found that in LLM, you can see—for example, this parameter represents red, this parameter represents the letter A, that parameter represents capitalism. This includes some very advanced concepts, all of which can be observed.

I shared two images, where I asked ChatGPT to draw an extreme Bitcoin person and draw a similarly extreme Ethereum person. On the left, Bitcoin features an exaggerated tycoon, while on the right, Ethereum is portrayed as a computer-playing geek. Through AI, we can see that Bitcoin and Ethereum have cultural differences. Through AI, we can contemplate many concepts related to people and society, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.

《The Lookout》: In the past two years, artificial intelligence and large language models have replaced Web3, encryption technology, and blockchain, becoming the mainstream of the global technological trend. Standing at the end of the Crypto technology wave, observing from afar the surging tide of the artificial intelligence revolution, what are you thinking?

Buterin: Blockchain and artificial intelligence serve completely different purposes. In the short term, artificial intelligence is a tool that anyone can use to increase efficiency. For example, when I write code or articles, especially for things I'm not good at, ChatGPT is most helpful to me. But in the long run, will artificial intelligence become smarter than humans? Definitely; it's just uncertain whether it will happen in 5 years or 50 years.

Blockchain addresses the issue of trust. When you want to develop applications that require many people to participate, interact, and communicate with each other without a central trust authority, blockchain applications can solve this issue. Our world faces many trust problems, and these problems are more pronounced than they were 10 years ago.

However, in the Crypto space, a problem in the last 5 years has been this: everyone's dreams and hopes are high, but the technology cannot fulfill most of those dreams. In 2020 and 2021, there was this issue: the transaction fees on Ethereum, Bitcoin, and all chains were very high, with a simple transaction costing $1 or $3 in transaction fees. Most desired applications, apart from finance, were not feasible. But this year, with Ethereum's scalability project, transaction fees on Layer 2 have dropped from $0.5 to sometimes $0.005. Many applications that were previously impossible have now become possible.

This kind of thing has happened many times in the computer field: for a long time, everyone had an idea, but it required upgrades in computer technology, CPU speed, and internet bandwidth to a certain level before these things finally became possible. In the next 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, this trend will also happen in Web3.

《Insight》: In the Crypto space, will a Super App emerge in the next 3 years?

Buterin: I sometimes think of a longer-term question: will the concept of an App change a lot in 10 years?

Now, an App is that you have a computer or a mobile phone, the phone has an interface, and you do things on the interface through buttons. But due to artificial intelligence, our way of interacting with computers and the internet has changed a lot.

In the field of artificial intelligence, startups say, now we have AI technology, and we make AI applications. Some (projects) have succeeded. But most will find that, in fact, people don't need many applications. They want to do something, they can directly tell ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will give them an answer. So I'm thinking, will the Super App of the future be like this? You can communicate directly with computers, phones, or any device in an AI way, and AI will know what you want to do and help you do those things.

《Insight》: Will the Artificial Intelligence technological revolution exacerbate centralization, making the world you envision more distant?

Buterin: This question is very complex. I recently discovered an interesting point using AI: I do things that many people have done before but that I am not good at, and ChatGPT is very useful to me; however, when I do something very cutting-edge, like complex cryptography, that perhaps only I and another 1000 people have done, AI is of no help to me.

On one hand, AI can achieve some equal results, allowing some people to do things they are not good at.

On the other hand, ChatGPT is a very centralized application. When you use ChatGPT, you have to fully trust that it will not expose your various data. I think this issue will become particularly evident 10 and 20 years from now.

Currently, everyone uses ChatGPT as if chatting with a friend. But in 10 years, everyone will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. It is possible that we will have some things like BCI (Brain-Computer Interface), leading to a deep connection between humans and robots. If your artificial intelligence has no privacy, you as a person have no privacy at all, including no privacy of thought. This is the first issue.

The second issue is if it is a centralized company, it can shut down at any time, change rules at any time, and change service conditions at any time. Whether you are an individual, a company, or a country, once you start relying on these, risks arise.

So, AI has many advantages, but also these issues.

I know many people are starting to work on open-source AI, Decentralized AI. In fact, I use these things myself. I deliberately bought a computer—(Buterin turns around and takes out a computer from a canvas bag)—this computer has a GPU, an NVIDIA 4070, and I can run some LLM on my own computer.

When I don't need the highest level of ChatGPT quality, I can do it on my own computer. I find this to have an advantage; when I don't have the Internet, it's not a problem. Decentralized AI is very important.

“OpenAI sacrificed open-source for safety in the first step, and sacrificed safety for profit in the second step.”

《Insights》: I am curious, how do you view the company OpenAI? Could it become the biggest, or even the ultimate monopolist?

Buterin: The story of OpenAI is very interesting. On one hand, it has provided everyone with a very user-friendly tool.

I can't say everyone. Because ChatGPT has two levels: the first level is free; the second level is priced at $20 per month, which some countries can use and some cannot. This tool is very useful, especially when I enter a field I am not good at.

However, OpenAI has a problem. Initially, Elon Musk saw many big Silicon Valley companies working on artificial intelligence, and he was concerned that if artificial intelligence was developed by them, would it become overly centralized? This poses many risks, so he founded OpenAI. Then, 5 years later, due to AI safety reasons, although they didn't explicitly say they were not open source, they modified their definition—open meant that their services are open.

《The Lookout》: It has turned into CloseAI.

Buterin: Yes, they have become CloseAI. Today, another issue has emerged: first, they sacrificed their open-source nature for security; then this year, they sacrificed their security for profit.

Last year, there was a conflict between the company and the board, and after the conflict, it seems like Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) won. Recently, they announced that they would transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, diminishing the power of the board—almost to an advisor level. This concerns me.

《The Lookout》: A few days ago, I interviewed Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese AI scientist, investor, entrepreneur. He made some statements that I would like to hear if you agree.

He said, "The first to develop AGI that surpasses opponents will inevitably be a commercial global monopolist, and it has the ambition to become the ultimate monopolist." "OpenAI is a particularly powerful monopolistic company, and Sam Altman may become the largest monopolist ever. Although he does not have a monopoly today, his ambition, strategy, and clear thinking about the next steps are very admirable. But from a practitioner's perspective, it is also worrying."

Buterin: That's right.

《The Lookout》: So, what is your view of Sam Altman as a person?

Buterin: I have only met him once, so it's hard for me to make a deep judgment on him. The only thing I can see is how he operates. Many of the things he has done at OpenAI, I disagree with.

He worked on the Worldcoin project, and I think the idea is good. I don't think Worldcoin should be the sole global digital identity solution, but it is addressing a real problem that needs solving. I have had more communication with the Worldcoin team, and they are concerned about all the issues that I would be concerned about.

However, there is still this issue, it is very difficult to do "the next global coin." When you want to do this, many people will oppose it. Doing such a thing requires two conditions at the same time — this is very interesting — first, the world needs to believe in you as a person; second, everyone needs to know that there is a mechanism that allows them not to need to trust you as a person. They have made quite a few improvements in the past year, hoping they can continue to develop in a positive direction.

《Insight》: You just said, on one hand, you need to trust this person, but on the other hand, you need to know that you don't need to trust this person. Does Sam meet this condition?

Buterin: I think the current OpenAI does not meet it.

《Insight》: If key people like Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI Chief Scientist) leave OpenAI, will it impact the AI landscape?

Buterin: This is a red flag, something to be concerned about.

Many people leaving does not necessarily mean the company has a problem. In the beginning, Ethereum had many co-founders leave. If someone leaves or is fired, it always signifies some conflict, some differences in values. Specific details need to be considered.

Looking at the details of OpenAI, I believe this company, in the first step, sacrificed openness for security, and in the second step, sacrificed security for profit. This reminds me of a quote from one of America's founding fathers: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." When you look at OpenAI's behavior, it seems like something along these lines is happening.

《Insight》: Sam Altman and you, who should humanity trust more?

Buterin: I don't want to answer that. (Laughs)

"The merger of biology and silicon is the only superintelligence that humanity can participate in."

《Insight》: How do you understand Peter Thiel's (Founders Fund Founding Partner) statement: "Cryptotechnology is libertarian, and artificial intelligence is communist"?

Buterin: I think what he means is: AI is centralized, Crypto is decentralized. Where does AI's power come from? First is the power of computation, second is data.

If you have more computational power, your AI will be stronger; if you have more data, your AI will also be stronger. AI is a particularly powerful thing. The best AI is the biggest AI. If you want to create an AI, the simplest way is to put both the computational power and the data in one place.

Now you can see that AI companies are almost all in 3-4 places around the world, Silicon Valley, London, China (several cities); but the Crypto community and projects are particularly dispersed, the Ethereum Foundation, only 25% are in the US, where are the others? They are everywhere. There are more in Germany, more in the UK, more in Singapore, and several developers in China. Every country has them, why is this? Because Crypto is doing something different.

Where is Crypto most useful? It is in some more marginal places, where there is no centralized trust center.

Interviewer: In places without centralized power? This means it is not the protagonist of the world.

Buterin: Crypto's goal is that you can create some applications, where everyone can see the rules of the application, contracts. Not everyone may be able to read them themselves, but at least many people can audit the code, everyone can participate, blockchain is a global thing. So, the characteristics of AI and Crypto are really heading in different directions.

Interviewer: The underlying values are different.

Buterin: Yes. Also, why people participate in these fields is different. The common reason is money. The difference is, everyone wants to do something with these fields.

Those involved in AI are particularly concerned about human technological development, hoping to accelerate humanity into an interstellar civilization, make humanity more powerful, and make themselves more powerful. People involved in blockchain will care about issues of decentralized trust, social justice, and so on.

Interviewer: Will AI and Crypto go in two separate branches, or will they converge? If they converge or head towards more extreme branches, what will we see on that day?

Bitcoin: The role of Crypto is to create a game, and the game you play may have many objectives. A transaction can be seen as a game. Another example is the prediction market, and this year, Polymarket (a prediction market project) has been quite successful.

Crypto can be a game where smart contracts securely enforce the rules of the game, and AI can participate in this game. If only humans participate, sometimes the efficiency is not high enough. For example, in the prediction market, I have been playing a lot on Polymarket this year. I noticed that the quality of their results was not very high four years ago, but this year it is much higher than four years ago. One reason for this is that there is more liquidity. Last year might have been 1 million or 10 million U.S. dollars, but this year it could be 100 million or 200 million. However, I also found that even in matters with low liquidity this year, the answers are quite good.

So, it is very likely that AI is now participating. AI reacts very quickly. For a person to do this, they need to be on the computer 24 hours a day, checking all the news every minute and every second. But an LLM, if you let it run, it can do it on its own.

I believe there will be more examples in the future, perhaps in the social field or in other areas. Crypto is a secure foundation, and through Crypto, you can create a game and ensure that the rules of the game are fair. The role of AI is to participate.

Interviewer: So it's not Crypto participating in an AI game, but AI participating in a Crypto game?

Bitcoin: Yes.

Interviewer: One day, if the ultimate power of artificial intelligence or "Big Brother" wants to destroy humanity, will the Crypto kingdom you represent come to the rescue of humanity?

Bitcoin: This question is quite complex. The role of Crypto is to create the rules of the game, not to solve specific problems.

People have many things they want to do—live longer, have a more comfortable life, go to Mars. To achieve these things, coordination among people is needed. If you are on an island and that island has only you and no one else, Crypto is completely useless. The only function of Crypto is to solve problems between people. But on an island where there is only you, AI is useful. Through this example, you can understand that Crypto cannot directly solve your problem but indirectly solves your problem. Crypto is playing a game, but it still needs humans, robots, or other things to participate in these games.

If you want to see how Crypto can save the world, it is not just Crypto, but Crypto + some other things. So Crypto + what?

· The first possibility is Crypto + Decentralized AI;

· The second possibility is Crypto + a technology that can replace AI.

What technology can replace AI? The only answer is for humans and computers to engage in a deeper level of interaction. In the past two years, VR, AR, and the Metaverse have been quite popular, such as Meta glasses. What are the characteristics of these technologies? The communication between the human brain and the machine, the flow, and the efficiency can be significantly enhanced.

When you put on Meta glasses, the glasses can directly see what you are looking at. Now, computers can receive some of your consciousness; through the glasses, they can see your eyes, body, and communicate directly with your subconscious mind.

Interestingly, the flow of communication between the left and right parts of a person's brain is not particularly high. If we can establish a highly efficient and high-flow communication between humans and machines, with a sufficiently fast response time, the computer truly becomes a part of you.

Why am I interested in this direction? Because something smarter than humans will definitely exist, maybe in 10, 100, or 1000 years. But will this entity smarter than humans be something independent that will surpass us, or can we become a part of this entity? — I think the latter is particularly intriguing.

《Watcher》: Can we become a part of it?

Buterin: Yes, or it becomes a part of us, that is, a merger — biological and silicon technologies will merge. This technology is unique, the only super intelligence in which humanity can participate.

If this is not done, the only possibility is that a single computer will be smarter than all of us, and they will control the world, with humans having no power to influence this world at all.

If this direction is to be pursued, it must be done in the right way. We already have Neuralink (Musk's brain-machine interface company), but this technology has a risk: a computer can read your thoughts, read your mind. If it is not open-source, if it is centralized, sending your information to a server. This means a large company can read your thoughts, which is very dangerous. So, I hope that in both software and hardware, we have open-source, security-respecting solutions.

How to Participate in Crypto? First is the business model. Open-source technology always has one drawback, which is that it is hard to find funding. If you create something centralized and under your control, there are many ways to make a lot of money. However, with open-source technology, everyone can download and use it, and once they are done, they don't need to have any relationship with you. It has its technical advantages, but the downside is that it is challenging to make money. Crypto, on the other hand, has many ways to respect open source and make money.

If we support some open-source technologies through Crypto, it is possible to see a more open-source BCI, a more open-source AI, and more openness in everything.

《Vision》: It sounds like AI architecture is built on Crypto?

Buterin: The business model can be on top of Crypto, or you can build an architecture using some Crypto technologies.

One more point that I haven't mentioned yet is that recently there have been some interesting new Crypto technologies, including Programmable Cryptography (PC) and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). The advantage is that you can create an AI that can perform calculations with your private data but without anyone else or any other computer knowing your private data. It can perform calculations with your data without actually seeing the data. These technologies have been known to be possible since 1982, but now they have reached a stage where they can be used for more applications.

《Vision》: In the field of artificial intelligence, who do you admire the most, and who do you dislike the most?

Buterin: Wow, that's... there isn't a clear example. I respect people who have stuck to their principles for a long time. There have been many external changes in the last five years, and many people change their minds. It's not necessarily because of their own reasons, but mostly for bad reasons—like, a team I don't like has an idea, so I need to have an idea just to counter them.

There aren't many people willing to keep their minds open for a long time and have principles. If they exist, I will respect them.

"If issuing a coin and creating an exchange are the only things we do, then this industry has failed."

《Vision》: Given the recent popularity of artificial intelligence and its appeal to young talent, for technology experts who are ambitious but hesitant to choose between a career in blockchain and artificial intelligence, what advice would you give?

Buterin: What matters most is what you are interested in.

Interviewer: Objectively speaking, will the prosperity of artificial intelligence in the past two years cause a cooling-off of Crypto?

Buterin: Definitely. Some of the people who used to be involved in Crypto are now participating in AI because AI has shown good development.

I find there are three types of people:

· The first type, their goal may be to do something significant, whatever it may be, they just want to do something big, influential, and be part of human history. Or to earn more money.

· The second type is for specific reasons related to Crypto, such as caring about currency, open-source issues, or caring about trust, human freedom issues, etc. They have always been on the blockchain side and will not go to AI.

· The third type wants to make money, but the quality of their work may be slightly lower.

I have a concern: if particularly intelligent people are not doing Crypto, the people left in the Crypto field may not have any interesting ideas, and the only application is financial applications that have been done for many years. It will become a situation of — launch a coin, make an exchange; then launch another coin, make an exchange; then launch another coin, this coin has a cute dog on it — these things are fun, but if they are the only things our industry does, then this industry is a failure.

The challenge our industry faces is to create an application that is both meaningful and attractive to many people at the same time.

I have recently found that there are many people who want to do this now. 2022 and 2023 are very dangerous periods, where AI has succeeded, but Crypto has not. Everyone knows how powerful AI's LLM is and what can be done with ChatGPT. However, Layer 2 has not yet come out, or is in a very early stage, and transaction fees are very high. So, in 2022 and 2023, the difference in what AI and Crypto can do is the greatest.

However, this year Crypto's power has increased a lot, and many developers have started thinking about creating applications that are both meaningful and attractive to many users. If the Crypto field continues to succeed, many people will still choose to participate in Crypto.

Interviewer: I told people in the Chinese venture capital industry around me that I am coming to see you today, and many people asked me the same question: How do you view the fact that after so many years, there are still no practical application products in the Ethereum ecosystem or the entire Web3 ecosystem?

Bitcoin: My answer is what I just said. Until this year, transaction fees were too high, some key technologies were not mature yet, account security issues were not resolved, privacy was not addressed, and many issues were not resolved. So, until this year, our industry did not have enough technology to build applications that ordinary people can use. The only successful application is DeFi for one reason: because DeFi can make you more money.

If there is an opportunity to increase your money tenfold, even with technical difficulties, you would be willing. If there is a 30% chance that your account will be hacked, your money will be gone if you encounter a problem, but if you win, your money will increase tenfold, you would most likely still participate.

But if you want to do something more ordinary, where the goal is not to increase your money tenfold, but to protect your money, protect your identity, or participate in some other applications, if technical difficulties and security issues are not resolved, you will not participate.

This year, we finally started to address these issues. This year is the best time to build meaningful applications.

Interviewer: Have you always been interested in hodling and speculating on cryptocurrencies?

Bitcoin: No.

Interviewer: What do you want? What do you want to drive in this world?

Bitcoin: I hope for a fairer, more open world, to build applications that can solve critical trust issues. If you want to build a fair, open world, solving trust issues is the necessary first step. Why are many things not so good? Because people do not know who to trust.

You can look at the use cases in crypto. In countries facing many financial problems, such as Argentina, they are particularly interested in crypto.

· First, this is a reliable financial system where they can put their money in, and it won't disappear one day.

· Second, they can connect with the mainstream financial system. Many people use crypto, work for US or European companies, earn US or European-level salaries, send money back to their own country, to themselves or their families, and participate in more equitable global matters.

· Third, there are other applications. For example, everyone likes to talk about identity or credit systems, but they all hope to solve one problem, which is the trust issue, hoping to know who to trust. There is a current topic: knowing who is a person, who is a bot.

If solved in a decentralized way, we are more likely to create some applications that can be used by people all over the world in a secure manner. This can avoid one risk: the world's division.

《Insight》: It sounds like Crypto is more suitable for places with a lack of trust and fairness; AI is more suitable for places that want to pursue greater human power—these are two completely different human ideals. Could it be that Crypto ignites countries like Argentina, while AI ignites countries like China and the United States, and from a global perspective, the ignited territories are different?

Buterin: In the long run, we all need to improve our capabilities. If we have a perfect, fair, and decentralized system, and the capability of the people working within it does not improve, after some time, they will still fall behind.

The technologies beyond Crypto, including AI and biological science, need global participation. However, there are different ways to develop these technologies. If we want to do it in a decentralized, more open way, Crypto may be involved to some extent. In the short term, the adoption of Crypto by different countries will be completely different.

For example, Argentina has basic financial problems. For example, the United States does not have these problems most of the time. The most useful aspect of Crypto for me is donating to some international charities. It is difficult to do this through banking systems but very easy through Crypto. In developed countries, those who use this technology the most are individuals who are particularly interested in participating in the international market and society. In smaller countries, there is more adoption of Application Chains (Appchains).

As for how these things will change in the long run, I also don't know.

《Insight》: I have a very basic question. For an ordinary person, what is the difference between a centralized application and a decentralized application?

Buterin: I can give you a specific example. We recently had some decentralized SocialFi applications that were successful on Ethereum; Lens and Farcaster are two of the most easily understood examples. What is the difference between Farcaster and Twitter?

In Twitter, first, its algorithm is completely opaque; second, if you feel that Twitter is not good, you do not like what it is doing, and want to move to another application, you lose your network. Anyone dissatisfied with Twitter and wanting to start a new one, the user base needs to start from scratch, and the network effect problem is particularly difficult to solve.

At Farcaster, the architecture is as follows—the first layer is a decentralized network, and the second layer is the interface where users can send messages and view messages sent by others. The most widely used client is called Warpcast, which is a decentralized app that you can download and use easily. Even a user who has never participated in Crypto can use Warpcast. However, if you do not like Warpcast or what they are doing, Farcaster also offers many other clients, such as Firefly. If you prefer Firefly over Warpcast, you can switch to Firefly and still participate in the Farcaster network. The messages you send through Warpcast can be seen by others using Warpcast, and you can also view messages sent by Warpcast users.

With a decentralized foundation, different clients can interact with each other, preventing Warpcast from becoming a monopoly.

This is a public, open-source ecosystem where anyone can develop their own client. The open architecture in the Farcaster ecosystem has already provided some significant advantages to certain users.

Interviewer: What is your view on speculators in the Crypto industry? Why are there so many of them in this industry?

Buterin: Speculative individuals exist in many fields, such as the stock market and sports betting industry. Many people have this tendency.

What should our industry do? First, if some people are interested in more gamified finance, I hope to see alignments where their participation in these activities results in benefits for their country and society.

Second, we need to provide ways for them to expand their wealth in the long term. In most societies globally, people used to invest in real estate, buying houses. However, the real estate market is very unfair to many people. They don't know if they are making money or losing money. If we could create some long-term financial products in the Crypto space that are profitable and linked to the real economy, that would be excellent.

Why haven't we succeeded before? First, regulations were not clear enough, but recently, regulations in many countries have become clearer. Second, the technology needs to be secure enough.

If you could increase your assets tenfold, you might be willing to face various risks. However, the real economy does not operate this way; the risk might be less than 3%, 8%, or 10%. If your returns are reasonable, you need to be concerned about security. We have made some progress in this aspect. I hope we can provide everyone with some better financial options.

「I Have No Nanny, Driver, or Bodyguard」

《Insight》: You became a billionaire at a very young age, what is your current lifestyle like?

Buterin: Not much different from 5 years ago. I travel to different countries and attend various events.

One of the main changes is that more people ask me for photos now.

《Insight》: Do you have a nanny, driver, or bodyguard?

Buterin: I don't have any of those. Maybe I have them when attending some major events, but most of the time, I don't.

《Insight》: I've seen on social media, including Chinese social media, that you are often seen taking the subway in Singapore. Why do you always take the subway?

Buterin: Because the subway in Singapore is really good.

《Insight》: What about in other countries?

Buterin: It varies in other countries; some don’t have subways or the subways are inconvenient, so I take a taxi. If it's walkable, I would choose to walk. I enjoy walking.

《Insight》: Why do both your bag and watch have cats on them?

Buterin: Because cats are cute.

Author captured on-site, Buterin showcasing his watch

《Insight》: Did you buy it in Thailand?

Buterin: No. The watch was a gift from a friend, and the compass was something I found on Amazon. The cat bag was a gift from my friend in Thailand.

《Insight》: In an interview, you mentioned: "I used to always hear stories like this when I was a child, of people who were very wealthy, but spent all their money on private planes, helicopters, luxury cars, or other foolish things, and in the end, they had nothing. I remember thinking to myself, this is so foolish. So when you are wealthy, have you ever entertained any foolish thoughts? Have you succumbed to them or resisted them?"

Bitcoin: Um, I'm not sure how to answer that.

Interviewer: In other words, have you ever been lost in wealth?

Bitcoin: I don't think I would think of it that way.

Interviewer: Do you often check the balance in your bank account?

Bitcoin: Not really.

Interviewer: I'm surprised that you know Chinese (without having lived in China). How did you learn and master the language?

Bitcoin: I started learning in 2013, just after dropping out of college, writing for Bitcoin Magazine. I decided to travel, see the Bitcoin world in China, the United States, and Europe. I read some articles about China, talking about the Chinese Bitcoin community and projects, which were particularly interesting.

Many people told me that Chinese is the hardest language to learn. It was an interesting challenge, so I started learning. Initially through language software, I first came to China in 2014 and started chatting with many Chinese friends. That's how I continued learning.

Interviewer: You know many languages, around 6? Does knowing many languages help with Crypto?

Bitcoin: My best are English, Russian, and Chinese. After that, French was learned at a Canadian school, from 2014 to 2019. I taught myself some German and Spanish. About 6 languages, I only know a little of other languages.

It does. Interestingly, European languages are easier to learn, closely related to English, stemming from Latin. Europeans all speak English, so sometimes in technical topics, they can speak English better. But for non-Europeans, it's not the case. It's particularly helpful to speak Russian with some community, Chinese with others, a little Spanish in South America.

Interviewer: Now, what are the top three things you are currently thinking about?

Bitcoin: First, the development of the Ethereum ecosystem, what we need to do now to make the Ethereum ecosystem, applications, and community thrive.

Second, some of the macro human issues we talked about, including AI.

Third, many smaller technical matters, like what I need to do today, what my next article will be, many small issues.

Interviewer: How do you view the U.S. election and the two candidates who are about to find out the results soon? (Our conversation took place 1 day before the announcement of the U.S. election results)

Vitalik: Who will win today, may not have a big impact 20 years later, 30 years later. There are some trends that will happen regardless of what happens today. Even if it doesn't happen today, it may happen in 2028. If it doesn't happen in the U.S., it may happen in other countries. So, mainly looking at some long-term trends and global trends. In 10 years, the culture, technology, race, and economy of the world will definitely change a lot.

Interviewer: As a globalist or a builder of some utopian community, you always try to break the old order and establish a new order. How do you view the human marriage institution? Do humans still need marriage?

Vitalik: This topic may change a lot in 50 years. Previously, everyone's goals were first economic security, second children. But now, at least in developed countries, there are no urgent economic problems, so people can think more about life, what they like. And, many people don't want or don't want to (have children).

The Internet has changed our social relationships a lot. If you moved from one city to another 30 years ago, it meant you lost all your friends, but not anymore. If the situation changes, our lives will change a lot.

Interviewer: Are you a free person now?

Vitalik: Sometimes free, sometimes not free.

Interviewer: Not free about what?

Vitalik: There are so many people in the Ethereum community. I always wonder what they are thinking, what they want to do.

Interviewer: Do you have any fears?

Vitalik: Fear of bugs.

After the conversation, Buterin left the tea bag's tag on the table. Photo by the author

(Special thanks to Peng Liu for his generous help with this article)

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