Vitalik Buterin Calls for Expanding Ethereum’s Non-Financial Capabilities

On the eve of New Year, Vitalik Buterin decided to share his memories and talked about the original vision of the Ethereum network and the influence of the cypherpunk movement on its creation. He also urged the crypto community to develop non-financial Web3 apps.

In his blog, Vitalik Buterin described the initial concept of the Ethereum blockchain and its principles.

Vitalik said that the idea of Ethereum was born thanks to the cypherpunk movement. The blockchain network was supposed to become a place for secure exchange of confidential messages and decentralized file storage. Ethereum was originally intended to be a “public decentralized shared hard drive.” However, in 2017, the focus was shifted to financialization.

Despite the successes of the blockchain network in using it to create various financial apps, Buterin urges the community not to forget that Ethereum isn’t just about making money. Vitalik stresses that the Ethereum community should value open participation, maintain the network’s resistance to censorship, and strive for neutrality.

In this perspective, Vitalik hopes for the development of non-financial applications on the Ethereum network. In his opinion, the ideas and principles of cypherpunks shouldn’t be forgotten. Ethereum developers are actively creating technologies that are in line with the ideas of cypherpunks. In particular, zero-knowledge proof (ZKP), rollups, second-generation privacy solutions, account abstractions, and more. These technologies can form the basis for new apps on the web that don’t pursue financial goals.

Vitalik says the Ethereum community should keep in mind the basic principles of blockchain networks, which consist of seven main points:

1. Open global participation. Anyone in the world should be able to participate as a user, observer, or developer in the ecosystem on a maximally equal footing.
2. Decentralization. Apps should continue to work even if their primary developers disappear.
3. Censorship resistance. Centralized actors shouldn’t be able to interfere with the user or the application.
4. Auditability. Any user should be able to validate the mechanisms of the application.
5. Credible neutrality. The base-layer infrastructure should be neutral and independent of the credibility of its developers.
6. Shared ecosystem. All applications interact with a wider open ecosystem.
7. Cooperative mindset. All projects in the ecosystem, despite competition, should collaborate on software development, research, security, community building, etc.

According to Buterin, if the community doesn’t comply with these fundamental requirements, then in a few years, there’s a chance to lose the unique value of the Web3 ecosystem and step on the path of creating a more modern copy of Web2.

Earlier, Vitalik Buterin spoke about the danger of “stretching” Ethereum’s consensus and expanding the functionality of the mainnet.

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