Vitalik's Dad on Ukraine, Censorship and More

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Vitalik's Dad on Ukraine, Censorship and Decentralization

 

Russian-Canadian computer programmer and entrepreneur Dmitry Buterin may have introduced his son Vitalik to Bitcoin – the first step in a chain of events that led to the development of the most-used blockchain today, Ethereum, that Vitalik co-founded – but he doesn't put much store in his place in crypto history. 

 

Dmitry, who often goes by the Russian diminutive, Dima, is a modest and thoughtful man. Now semiretired after a successful career in software engineering, Dima spends his free time reading philosophy and going for walks. He takes pictures of the simple pleasures of nature – frost on a tree limb, the first flowers of spring. And he gets more fulfillment advising early-stage crypto projects, and running the educational company BlockGeeks, than playing Vitalik's Dad for the media.

 

Buterin, like many other true believers in crypto, relishes in complexity. The so-called "world computer," Ethereum, is at the center of a techno-economic revolution affecting everything from banking to the backbone of the web. But as big as this project is, it will work best if built of smaller, discrete parts. 

 

"Right now, the most creative decentralized projects are designed by techies," Dima said in a recent interview with The Node. Ethereum's success, he thinks, is largely due to its design, which makes it easy for anyone to build or use its crypto-powered applications. Likewise, some of the world's most deranged problems stem from the centralization of power and influence. 

 

Born in the Soviet Union, and later a citizen of Russia and Canada, Dima has been an outspoken critic of authoritarians the world over – including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Long before Putin invaded Ukraine, causing the death of thousands and the displacement of millions, Dima was willing to call the president an "autocrat." "Corruption has seized the highest levels of the state," he said recently. 

 

Crypto has emerged, perhaps surprisingly, as a useful lifeline for those impacted directly by the war. Coming up on a month since Russia's invasion, the Ukrainian government has raised over $100 million in various cryptocurrencies for military and civilian needs. Millions more are being routed to charitable efforts, through vehicles like Ukraine DAO (short for decentralized autonomous organization) or direct, on-chain donations. 

 

But crypto may take on an even larger role during and after this crisis. By privileging free-market organization and the decentralization of authority, these novel protocols support new systems that might ensure no one like Putin can gain power again, Dima said. "It feels to me that this whole situation will lead the next big push towards adoption of crypto," he said. This emphasis on decentralization is why Dima thinks crypto platforms should not join in blanket sanctions of all Russian people. 

 

Decentralization – and the profit-motive – are double-edged swords, however. Last week, Time magazine published the latest in-depth profile of Vitalik, where the Ethereum creator urged the industry to think more critically about the things being built or how the system is used. The most profitable programs – like needless NFTs or dead end DAOs – aren't always the ones the world needs most, he said. It's a position Dima agrees with, who said technologists need to focus on "human" problems.

 

Read the full article here.

 

Daniel Kuhn

The Chaser...

The Node

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