[HN Gopher] Interview: Vitalik Buterin
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       Interview: Vitalik Buterin
        
       Author : jger15
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2022-09-02 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (noahpinion.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (noahpinion.substack.com)
        
       | trevmckendrick wrote:
       | Genuinely curious where patio11 disagrees with this interview &
       | why
        
       | vzaliva wrote:
       | Whenever I see russian-born public figure in the news these days
       | before reading further I check where he or she stands on the war
       | in Ukraine. Apparently, Vitalik is OK.
       | 
       | "On April 4, Buterin sent 750 Ether, or about $2.5 million, to
       | the Aid for Ukraine initiative, which was created by the Ukraine
       | government, and another 750 Ether (in two transactions of 250
       | Ether and 500 Ether) to the Unchain Fund, a charity created to
       | support Ukraine with humanitarian aid."
       | 
       | "Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian cofounder of the Ethereum
       | blockchain, condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Twitter
       | minutes after Russia announced a "special military operation" in
       | Ukraine, effectively declaring war on the Eastern European
       | country."
        
       | jiggawatts wrote:
       | > _"...who just wants to build cool stuff and not rip anybody
       | off."_
       | 
       | I think it's a scathing indictment of the entire crypto industry
       | that this is how its key figures are introduced.
       | 
       | It's like introducing a mafia boss and starting off with saying
       | that he hasn't killed anyone.
        
         | jmeister wrote:
         | No, it's a scathing indictment of NS's audience: mainstream
         | economists cynical about crypto(the hostility between the two
         | groups is mutual).
        
       | michaelwww wrote:
       | This is a great article. Buterin's critique of Bitcoin was very
       | interesting.
        
         | adastra22 wrote:
         | Which critique? I searched for bitcoin in the article and
         | didn't find anything critiquing Bitcoin itself.
        
           | simonw wrote:
           | This bit in particular was interesting, talking about the
           | comparative security of proof-of-stake Ethereum and proof-of-
           | work Bitcoin.
           | 
           | > In the case of Bitcoin, I'm worried for two reasons. First,
           | in the long term, Bitcoin security is going to come entirely
           | from fees, and Bitcoin is just not succeeding at getting the
           | level of fee revenue required to secure what could be a
           | multi-trillion-dollar system. Bitcoin fees are about $300,000
           | per day and haven't really grown that much over the last five
           | years. Ethereum is much more successful at this, because the
           | Ethereum blockchain is much more designed to support usage
           | and applications. Second, proof of work provides much less
           | security per dollar spent on transaction fees than proof of
           | stake, and Bitcoin migrating away from proof of work seems to
           | be politically infeasible. What would a future look like when
           | there's $5 trillion of Bitcoin, but it only takes $5 billion
           | to attack the chain?
           | 
           | I can't bold here, but if I could I would have bolded "What
           | would a future look like when there's $5 trillion of Bitcoin,
           | but it only takes $5 billion to attack the chain? ".
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | "Man who runs and has most of his wealth in the biggest rival
         | of Bitcoin criticizes Bitcoin."
        
           | michaelwww wrote:
           | Yes, that's obvious, he's the best guy to critique Bitcoin
           | because he has every reason to shoot it down. What's the
           | response from Bitcoiners going to be? That should be equally
           | interesting.
        
           | habitue wrote:
           | Also, you're free to look at his actual statements and
           | evaluate them based on how reasonable they seem to you. Not
           | everything has to be evaluated from the perspective of
           | conflict of interest
        
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       (page generated 2022-09-02 23:00 UTC)