Vitalik Rare Self-Criticism: Ethereum Missed the Really Important Battle

Original Author: Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-Founder

Original Translation: DeepTech TechFlow

Editor's Note: This is a rare instance of public self-criticism by Vitalik. He directly points out Ethereum's near absence in various social issues in recent years and proposes a new framework — "Sanctuary Tech."

This post represents one of the most valuable internal discussions within the Ethereum community: what are we building, and for whom. The full text is as follows:

Over the past year, many people I've spoken to have been worried about two things:

One is the direction of the world: government control and surveillance, war, corporate power and surveillance, technological decay and corporate waste, social media turning into a battleground of information, AI and its entanglement with all of the above...

The second is a more heart-wrenching reality: Ethereum seems to have not significantly improved people's lives in these issues, even in dimensions we care about the most — such as freedom, privacy, digital life security, and community self-organization.

Empathizing with the first issue is easy, as we can all lament together about the fading beauty of the world, the advancement of darkness, and the ruthless elites at the top driving all of this. But admitting the problem is easy; the hard part is truly pointing to a way out and proposing a specific solution that can improve the status quo.

The second issue has weighed heavily on me, as well as on many of the smartest, most idealistic Ethereum people. Political meme coins rise on Solana, or various zero-sum gambling apps run on some 250-millisecond block time chain — personally, I have never felt anger or fear. But what truly unsettles me is this: in the low-intensity network information wars of recent years, the international overreach of corporate and government powers, and various real-world issues, Ethereum's role has been extremely limited. What are the technologies that truly bring liberation? Starlink is one prominent one, locally-run open-source large models are another, Signal is a third, and Community Notes take a different angle on this issue.

One response is to say, "Stop dreaming, we need to face reality, finance is our niche, let's focus on that." But this is ultimately hollow. Financial freedom and security are of course paramount. However, evidently, even a completely free, open, sovereign, and anti-inflationary financial system, once built, can only address part of the problem; most of our deep world concerns remain unresolved. It's fine to personally focus on finance, but we need to be part of a larger whole that can also speak out on other issues.

Meanwhile, Ethereum cannot fix the entire world. Ethereum is a 'misshapen tool': beyond a certain boundary, 'fixing the world' means a projection of power, more like a centralized political entity rather than a decentralized technical community.

So what can we do? I believe the Ethereum community should position itself as part of building a 'sanctuary tech' ecosystem: these freely open-source technologies that enable people to live, work, interact, manage risk, build wealth, and collaborate around common goals—and all optimized for resilience against external pressures.

The goal is not to reshape the world in Ethereum's image, not to make all finance disintermediated, all governance done via DAOs, and everyone airdrop blockchain UBI into social recovery wallets. Quite the contrary: the goal is de-totalization. It is to lower the stakes of this war of worlds by preventing winners from taking all (i.e., full control over others) and losers from losing all. To create digital stable islands in a tumultuous age. To prevent interdependence from being weaponized.

Ethereum's role is to create a 'digital space' where different entities can cooperate and interact within. Communication channels can facilitate interactions, but the communication channel itself is not the 'space': it cannot allow you to create the sole object that can normatively represent some socially arranged set that evolves over time. Money is a key example, a multisig wallet that can swap members is another—it exhibits a persistence that transcends any single individual or public key, and various market and governance structures are a third. And more.

I believe it is time to double down on a clearer sense of purpose. Not to try to be Apple or Google, to see crypto as a tech race for efficiency gains or prestige. But to build the part that belongs to us in the sanctuary tech ecosystem—that 'ownerless shared digital space' that underlies open finance but also far more. Actively build a full-stack ecosystem: extending upwards to the wallet and app layers (including AI as an interactive interface), downwards to the OS, hardware, and even the physical and biometric security layers.

Ultimately, technology is worthless without users. But to seek out those who truly need sanctuary tech, be it individuals or institutions. Optimize payments, DeFi, decentralized social, and other apps precisely for these users and these objectives—those unintended places of centralization tech. We have many allies, including many beyond the 'crypto crowd.' It's time to collaborate with an open mindset and push forward together.

Rhythm Supplementary Comments

@MarkSmitb: If Starlink is considered a liberating technology, I can't agree. Entrusting one of the most corrupt people—Elon Musk—with that trust seems to completely contradict the essence of cryptocurrency.

Vitalik Reply: Yes, but it has indeed brought more freedom to people. The answer is not to oppose Starlink, but to support at least ten institutions with different stances, each establishing an alternative system similar to Starlink. Ideally, there should be at least one system that is open-source and supports using open protocols to handle payments and prevent DDoS attacks.

@hashdag: The overall tone of this post is completely different from what you posted a few weeks ago. Back then, you mentioned that trust in Ethereum should be independent of your political stance and moral judgment.

Vitalik Reply: Good question. There are mainly two paths to influencing global affairs:

1. Impacting the world's structure in a way that is neutral in specific contexts but has a clear direction towards an ideal outcome (such as empowering marginalized communities). This inevitably involves value judgments on "what high-order properties the world should have."

2. Impacting specific individual contexts, which inevitably involves personal views on these specific events.

I believe positioning the Ethereum community as a whole on execution path 1 rather than path 2 is healthier. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) does not represent Ethereum, but even the Foundation should heavily favor path 1. Meanwhile, every contributor to Ethereum is not some kind of deified Ethereum incarnation; they are living people who inevitably have views on path 2. Different individuals will have various path 2-like "side gigs"—on a small scale, running a social media account with a strong stance preference; on a large scale, actively engaging in on-the-ground implementation.

Of course, based on statistical averages and cluster dynamics, different subcommunities will ultimately exhibit different collective tendencies on various path 2 issues. We should not pretend this situation doesn't exist, but the wise approach is to hold the line and clarify that these tendencies are not the "official stance."

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