As ETH price continuously surged and briefly broke through $4,400 (BlockBeats Note: On the morning of August 13, Ethereum had broken through $4,600, only 5.14% away from its historical high of $4,868), Ethereum founder Vitalik has surprisingly retreated from his highly active state of frequent communication last year, occasionally speaking out. His personal focus has expanded from cryptocurrency and Ethereum ecosystem to recent hot topics like ETH reserve strategies, AI models, and even cultural differences between China and the United States.
At a time when the Ethereum Foundation is gradually reforming and ETH reserve strategies are in full swing, Vitalik finally seems to have temporarily laid down the burden of being a founder, with a hint of detached determination. Odaily will sort through Vitalik's recent external statements in this article to gain insight into his current thoughts.
A Brief Analysis of Vitalik's Recent Situation: Beyond Ethereum Ecosystem, He's Concerned About Culture and AI
On May 21 this year, Vitalik updated his status on Farcaster, stating he purchased a standard drink (extra-large hot green tea) at a Swiss Starbucks for 6.2 Swiss francs; compared to the 5.6 Swiss francs in 2014, the local annual inflation rate is only 1%, with words full of emotion. (Odaily Note: In comparison, the expected annual inflation rate in the US from 2013-2025 is 3.35%)
After proposing the "ZK Verification Multi-Worker Allocation Hypothesis" and a "German phonetic pun", Vitalik remained quite quiet for a while.
It wasn't until a month later that he posted again on Farcaster with an image. The post was published in the Berlin channel, with the text "Fuk bitcoins. Das ist unser Krieg." and an image of a graffiti wall writing the same phrase (meaning "Fuck bitcoins. This is our war"). It is understood that the graffiti was possibly an anti-slogan supporting Ukraine, originally meaning "This is not our war", with the negation word erased, turning it into a call for peace and support for Ukraine.
At that time, Vitalik might have been wandering the streets of Berlin, Germany, discovering Bitcoin-related slogans, using this to express his call for peace and confidence in ETH and the Ethereum ecosystem.
He Still Can't Let Go of His Beloved Ethereum Ecosystem
As a product of Vitalik's heart and soul, the Ethereum ecosystem is undoubtedly the most difficult technical crystallization for him to let go of.
[The rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach]Are Cultural Differences Between China and the US Also His Research Subject?
In a Farcaster post on July 21, Vitalik mentioned the "century boundary periods" he likes, including 1643-1648 (transition from Ming to Qing Dynasty, end of the Thirty Years' War, signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, Galileo's death, Newton's birth), 1789 (French Revolution, Lavoisier promoting the formalization of chemistry), 1911-1917 (Xinhai Revolution, World War I, Russian Revolution, theory of relativity), and 2020-2023 (COVID-19 pandemic, end of US hegemony, AI passing the Turing test). It's clear that Vitalik has done extensive research on domestic and international history.
In a recent post, he directly stated: "The cultural differences between China and the US are still about 4 times larger than the cultural differences between generations (30 years). However, I predict that as technological progress accelerates and global interconnectedness deepens, future generational differences will surpass national cultural differences and may bring about many unexpected impacts, such as using longevity technology as a means of cultural preservation."
In other words, as people's lifespans increase, national boundaries may become blurred, and generational differences will cause people of different ages to have different memories, thereby preserving different cultures in the memories of different generations.
Vitalik Also Discusses ETH Reserve Strategy: One Diversification Method, But Warns Against "Excessive Leverage Games"
Apart from his personal channels, Vitalik recently appeared in an interview on the Bankless podcast, a benchmark media outlet in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Regarding the "impact of ETH reserves on Ethereum", Vitalik candidly stated, "ETH as an asset that companies can hold is good and valuable, and providing more choices is good."
However, he also issued a warning: "If you wake me up three years from now and tell me that sovereign debt has caused ETH to collapse, my guess is that they have become an excessive leverage game."
Of course, this statement has been viewed as evidence of Vitalik's support for the ETH reserve strategy, thereby attracting some criticism.
Some have dug up Vitalik's previous criticism of Michael Saylor, the founder of Strategy, for establishing BTC reserves, suggesting that his views are influenced by personal interests.
But in the author's view, times have changed, and Vitalik's criticism of Saylor was more focused on the potential negative impact of Strategy, as a regulated public company, on the decentralization of the cryptocurrency industry.
Looking from today's perspective, this point has almost become a foregone conclusion after the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs; ETH's significant recovery over the past 3 months and the possibility of breaking new highs come precisely from the main push of ETH reserve-holding companies.
The course of history is not determined by individual will, and for Vitalik, this may also be true for the direction of Ethereum and the cryptocurrency industry.
In March this year, Vitalik changed his X platform profile picture from the previous Milady Non-Fungible Token to the Tauren Druid bear form he had used before in World of Warcraft, with his Twitter bio changed to "I choose balance. First-level balance. mi pinxe lo crino tcati", and attached a post titled "In Balance" published on the Slate Star Codex forum on September 12, 2018.
After passing his own milestone year, after the Ethereum network has been running for exactly 10 years, and as ETH price returns to a new high since the end of 2021, Vitalik, born in 1994, may be slowly moving forward on his own path of understanding, seeking his own destiny amidst various balances.
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