Buterin discussed Ethereum’s potential to create a decentralized social media while talking about how it could grow beyond DeFi at EthCC, Paris.
Ethereum Founder Criticizes High Gas Fees
As keynote speaker at the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Paris, founder Vitalik Buterin gave a rousing speech about Ethereum’s capacity and necessity to go beyond decentralized finance and being financially beneficial. It needs to be socially valuable as well. He criticized Ethereum’s expensive gas fees that can cripple the average user, citing that only the wealthy traders and DeFi obsessives can afford to pay for it. Buterin feels that this severely hampers the possibility of a holistic Ethereum ecosystem.
A New Decentralized Social Media
The highlight of the speech was when Buterin talked about his hopes to see Ethereum laying the base for a new social media ecosystem that would stand against the centralized social media networks rampant with data harvesting and misinformation. He noted that decentralized social media had recently become a point of interest among other crypto enthusiasts, referencing Stani Kulechov’s recent suggestion for Aave to build “Twitter on Ethereum.”
The new decentralized social media platform, he hopes, would encourage higher quality content from only vested members of Ethereum DAO. Additionally, it could take the role of a wallet-based multipurpose sign-in to a wide variety of Ethereum-based applications. These login options, he hopes, would be neutral, censorship-resistant, and geared for design improvement.
He compared this to the still choppy sign-in functionality existing between Gmail and Facebook and criticized how they have a tendency to randomly de-platform certain users or be unhelpful to some users who have been locked out of their accounts.
Other Key Points
He also discussed how NFTs had led Ethereum to start spreading its wings beyond DeFi projects, explicitly citing the decentralized naming app Ethereum Name Service that allows users to enter Ethereum addresses in a human-readable format.
He also advised investors to regulate their DeFi investment funds so that the stacking did not go beyond Layer 2. He believes that stacking money legos till infinity could harm Ethereum in the long run.
“Once you get to Layer 6, you’re actually increasing the financial instability and the risk that this whole thing is going to collapse and potentially get a couple of regulators angry.”
Finally, he expounded on other alternative routes for Ethereum’s road ahead, like the more socially relevant ‘retroactive funding’. This would require developers to build public infrastructure for free and then get paid when it yielded returns.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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