Category: Vitalik Buterin

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Vitalik Buterin Claims Potential ETH Proof-of-Work Fork is ‘Unlikely to Succeed’

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says he’s not worried about the potential of another hard fork following the Merge that’s set to take next month, claiming that proponents of a proof-of-work consensus mechanism “want to make a quick buck” and that it is “unlikely to succeed”.

The Merge upgrade will see the ecosystem move from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a more sustainable proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism that will improve the efficiency of the project and dramatically reduce its environmental impact.

Ethereum recently deployed its 10th shadow fork in preparation for the Merge. While the impending event has brought much excitement to the community – with Buterin more excited than most – it has also garnered a lot of criticism and speculation.

Least happy about the Merge are Ethereum miners who stand to lose income. To offset this potential loss, some are pushing against it and propose a potential continuous “ETH PoW” chain post-upgrade.

Miners Push for PoW to Sustain Their Investment

While interest in ETH PoW has been driven by Ethereum miners such as Chandler Guo, PoS will allow Ethereum to rely on a trusted network of validators, effectively eliminating its mining for good. In response, miners may try to continue the PoW chain to sustain their investment.

Tron founder Justin Sun has emerged as one of the prominent investors who support a hard fork to keep the money flowing. He has said there is nothing wrong with preserving ETH’s PoW system, despite the benefits a PoS consensus mechanism can provide:

As the founder of a proof-of-stake blockchain, I believe that proof-of-work has its own unique value. In fact, we may have underestimated the value of Ethereum as the only proof-of-work smart contract blockchain.

Justin Sun, Tron founder

Buterin has argued that those pushing for a fork are “just a couple of outsiders that basically have exchanges, and most just want to make a quick buck”. He added:

So I’m not expecting it to have substantial long-term adoption, just because I think Ethereum Classic already has a superior community and superior product for people pro-proof-of-work.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder

That does not mean we won’t see a few of them try as the project shifts. “If a proof-of-work fork becomes large, then there’s definitely a lot of applications that will have to choose one way or the other,” Buterin said, adding that if ETH PoW gained substantial traction, he expected a lot of market confusion and problems.

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Vitalik Buterin Claims BTC Stock-to-Flow Model is False

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has renewed his attack on the stock-to-flow (S2F) price model for Bitcoin, dismissing it as “false”, “harmful” and “deserving of mockery”.

He went even further in echoing EthHub co-founder Anthony Sassano who, in a same-day tweet, damned S2F as an “epic failure”:

How the Stock-to-Flow Model Works

The S2F price model, authored by crypto analyst PlanB, predicts the future price of bitcoin based on its supply in circulation (stock) relative to the number of coins mined each year (flow), which decreases by half every four years. According to S2F predictions, 2022 would see bitcoin trading within the US$100,000-110,000 range, though the most recent market crash marked an 18-month low for BTC under US$20,000 last week, calling the model’s accuracy into question.

At that time, Buterin railed against “the ‘halvings cause BTC price rises’ theory”, implying that any price can be cited as evidence that the S2F model is correct.

S2F author PlanB countered Buterin in saying that the market’s slump made some people look for “scapegoats for their failed projects or wrong investment decisions”:

BTC vs S2F: Which Will Thrive to Survive?

In an earlier tweet, PlanB admitted that the model had enjoyed a “good run” for three years (until March 2022) but had since wobbled from its trajectory. As for the current market, PlanB considers that “either BTC is extremely undervalued and will bounce back soon, or S2F will be less useful in the future”.

Just last month, Buterin voiced his admiration for Bitcoin, saying he’d like to see Ethereum attain a similar level of stability. To do so, however, would require significant short-term change and instability – an apparent contradiction that has since come to pass.

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Crypto News Crypto Staking Ethereum Vitalik Buterin

ETH Proof-of-Stake Goes Live on Ropsten Testnet, One Step Closer to the Merge

Ethereum developers completed a significant milestone towards Ethereum’s eventual full transition to a proof-of-stake blockchain on June 8, by merging the Ropsten testnet’s original proof-of-work chain with its new proof-of-stake chain: 

The planned merge of the Ropsten testnet was first announced on June 3, when it was described by Ethereum developer Tim Beiko as a “dress rehearsal for node operators”. 

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has previously said that if all goes well with the Ropsten merge, he anticipates the mainnet merge will take place around August of this year.

Merge Will Reduce Energy Use by Orders of Magnitude

Ethereum is currently a proof-of-work chain, which means miners use large amounts of energy to solve complex mathematical puzzles to verify new transactions, in the process earning ETH. This process is energy-intensive, largely due to the fact that the energy used by miners that don’t solve the puzzles is essentially wasted. 

Once the network transitions to proof-of-stake, there will no longer be miners – they’ll be replaced by validators. Validators will also verify transactions, but rather than relying on massive computing power to do so, validators will be selected based on the amount of ETH they’ve staked and the duration they’ve staked it.

It’s estimated the switch to proof-of-stake could reduce Ethereum’s energy use by up to 99.95 percent.

Buterin Optimistic About Mainnet Merge

Speaking on a livestream before the Ropsten merge, Buterin was hopeful that a smooth test merge would demonstrate how far the developers have progressed along the path towards proof-of-stake, and suggested if all goes well the upgrade could be applied to mainnet fairly easily:

We’re hoping it’s going to be a good demonstration of just how far we’ve come. If everything goes well, it basically means that we’re just a bit of polishing away from the merge being able to happen on mainnet. 

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder

Ropsten is Ethereum’s oldest testnet and is considered the testnet most similar to the Ethereum mainnet, meaning that theoretically any changes on Ropsten should transfer smoothly to mainnet.

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Vitalik Buterin Opens Up About Ethereum Plans for Web3

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin took to Twitter this week to air a series of contradictions he sees between the direction of the network he created and his personal beliefs and values.

In the lengthy thread posted on May 17, Buterin discussed issues he characterises as “open contradictions in his thoughts and values” that revolve around Ethereum’s stability and security and its cultural and political impact.

Admiration for Bitcoin’s Stability

Buterin’s first point highlighted his admiration for Bitcoin, in particular its long-term stability, saying he’d like to see Ethereum attain a similar level of stability. To do so, however, would require significant short-term change and instability – something Buterin rightly sees as a contradiction:


Buterin Airs Views on Security, Decentralisation and Democracy

Buterin mused on the tensions between his personal beliefs and core crypto values such as decentralisation, security, and networks’ independence from specific individuals.

While expressing his love for decentralisation and democracy, he said that on a personal level he often finds himself siding with the views of intellectual elites over the opinion of the masses. 

And while his preference for Ethereum is to reduce reliance on individuals and build “fixed systems that can stand the test of time”, Buterin also admitted his appreciation for people he describes as “live players”, those who make change happen.


He also described a contradiction between his goal to make Ethereum a highly secure layer 1 network that can survive “truly extreme circumstances” and his knowledge that many important apps currently running on the network have far weaker security than he would ever deem appropriate for Ethereum itself.

Grudging Acknowledgement of NFT Craze

Buterin confessed his dislike of the NFT “art” craze exemplified by Bored Ape Yacht Club, but acknowledged such collections have played a role in funding some of the more interesting DAO and decentralised governance experiments. An example he cited was the AssangeDAO to assist Julian Assange’s legal defence, largely funded by the CypherPunks NFT community.


Buterin said that while he wanted more countries to adopt crypto, he had concerns that the kind of governments most likely to fully embrace the technology are less likely to allow freedom to flourish:


Unlike many crypto founders who shy away from difficult topics and go all in on self-promotion, Buterin is prepared to discuss flaws he sees in the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, earlier this month he shared his belief that gas fees on Ethereum layer-2 protocols should be under 10 cents to be considered “truly acceptable”.

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UNSW Sydney Gets $4 Million Crypto Donation from Vitalik Buterin for AI-Powered Research

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has gifted US$4 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) to Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) to support the development of an artificial intelligence-based pandemic detection tool:

Buterin’s donation will underwrite the Shiba Inu Open-Source Intelligence-based EPIWATCH tool, which utilises AI and open-source data to create early pandemic warnings.

It’s all part of what Buterin describes as his “moonshot anti-Covid effort”, in partnership with the Shiba Inu memecoin project and the Crypto Relief fund, which was launched during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India last year.

Tool Scans Online Data for Covid Updates

EPIWATCH is the brainchild of Raina MacIntyre, professor and biosecurity research head at UNSW’s Kirby Institute, based at the university’s Sydney campus. The tool can scan millions of items of publicly available online data, including social media and news reports, to detect any changes that could suggest increasing Covid-related health concerns.

Raina MacIntyre, biosecurity research head, UNSW. Source: sph.med.unsw.edu.au

MacIntyre says the aim was to make the tool accessible at a “grassroots” level and make sure it covers enough languages to reach “villages and small towns around the world”. MacIntyre also eluded that “Imagine if someone had detected Covid-19 before it spread around the world – that is our vision. Using AI and real-time open-source data, EPIWATCH does not depend on people making reports. It is a great equaliser and can overcome weak health systems and censorship.”

Open-Source Approach Accelerates Pandemic Detection

In announcing his donation to the project, Buterin stressed the importance of sharing data in a decentralised and open manner to speed up pandemic detection:

[It’s] an excellent alternative to more intrusive forms of monitoring, which are also often only available to governments and other high bidders but closed to the public. By contrast, an open-source and open-access approach that allows researchers to work collaboratively across the world can be more easily improved and scaled to detect new pandemics wherever they begin.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder

Australian universities are at the forefront of crypto-related research designed to benefit humanity. Earlier this month, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University launched its Green Cryptocurrency Laboratory, which will focus on reducing crypto’s carbon footprint.

And last year, in response to an outbreak of fake Covid-19 vaccine certificates circulating on the web, Australian medical specialists called for a nationwide roll-out of a blockchain-based vaccine certificate system.