Vitalik’s New Work “Reviving Cypherpunk Ethos in Ethereum” Advocates Protecting Web3 Spirit with Seven Core Values

Vitalik's New Work "Reviving Cypherpunk Ethos in Ethereum" Advocates Protecting Web3 Spirit with Seven Core Values

Vitalik's New Work "Reviving Cypherpunk Ethos in Ethereum" Advocates Protecting Web3 Spirit with Seven Core Values

Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has published an article titled “Bringing Ethereum Back to Cypherpunk” today, emphasizing that the deep-seated vision behind cryptocurrency should not be limited to creating isolated tools and games, but to comprehensively establish a more free and open society and economy.

Vitalik points out that since around 2017, due to the rising transaction fees on the blockchain, the majority left in the blockchain ecosystem are either wealthy individuals or gamblers. When they become the largest group of users of blockchain on a large scale, this will adjust the public’s perception and the internal culture of the cryptocurrency field, leading to many other negative impacts that we have seen in the past few years, such as the gradual decline of the “pure Web3 spirit”.

Nowadays, technologies such as Rollups, second-generation privacy solutions, account abstraction, and zero-knowledge proofs are beginning to be implemented, and cryptocurrencies seem to have found an opportunity to regain the cypherpunk spirit. In order to maintain the unique value of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, Vitalik proposes seven values ​​for the Ethereum community and other ecosystems to refer to.

Global Open Participation: Anyone should be able to participate as a user, observer, or developer, enjoying the maximum degree of equality. Participation should not require permission.

Decentralization: Minimize reliance on any single actor in the application, so that the application can continue to operate even if the core developers disappear permanently.

Resistance to censorship: Centralized actors should not have the ability to intervene in the operation of any user or application. Issues related to bad actors should be resolved at a higher level of the stack.

Auditability: Anyone should be able to verify the logic and ongoing operation of the application (for example, by running a full node) to ensure that it operates according to the rules described by the developers.

Trustworthy neutrality: The underlying layer of infrastructure should remain neutral, and anyone, even without trusting the developers, should be able to see the neutrality.

Building tools rather than empires: Empires try to confine users within their walls, while tools accomplish tasks and interact with a broader open ecosystem.

Cooperative mindset: Even in competition, projects within the ecosystem cooperate in areas that are mutually valuable, such as sharing software libraries, research, security, and community building. Projects strive to achieve positive-sum outcomes with each other and the wider world.

In addition, Vitalik also pointed out that the extensive Ethereum ecosystem (or web3) should be seen as creating various independent technology protocol stacks and competing with traditional centralized protocol stacks at various levels.

Vitalik states that one of the benefits of viewing it as a stack is that it aligns with Ethereum’s spirit of diversity. The Bitcoin protocol only attempts to solve one or at most two or three problems, while Ethereum has sub-communities that focus on different issues, and there is no single dominant narrative. The goal of the stack is to promote this diversity while striving to enhance interoperability within this diversity.

Furthermore, Vitalik emphasizes the importance of both technology and social aspects in the Ethereum ecosystem. Technological diversity and cooperation are crucial to Ethereum’s success, while the social aspect is about balancing incentives and values. The article mentions that relying solely on incentives within the protocol is not enough to ensure decentralization, and it requires the strengthening of the social aspect.

The social aspect of Ethereum not only values incentives but also emphasizes the warmth and cohesion of the community, while avoiding the risks brought by excessive community-driven actions. This balance and integration are key to realizing Ethereum’s vision on both the economic and technical levels.