Laura Shin’s Unchained podcast saw its first live taping in an episode that had a very prominent guest: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The two conversed about a range of subjects in an hour-long interview and, as is always the case with Unchained and Buterin himself, there was something interesting on offer.
Buterin, whose opinions the cryptocommunity hangs onto, was thrown the hard questions right from the get go, as BreakerMag reports. Shin’s first question for Buterin was, “Is Ethereum losing its lead?”
To which Buterin responded,
In terms of what our model is, there’s definitely been people from time to time who say we need to go in guns blazing. Get ‘em to work for 16 hours every day and…we’ve got Ethereum 3.0, man.
Certainly, it’s in keeping with past statements about development, and Buterin is keeping a level head and taking a methodical approach to maturing Ethereum’s ecosystem. He believes that Ethereum is still a very young project, and there’s a while to go before the technology in general makes significant headway in the larger world.
At one point, Shin asks Buterin if he would personally be upset if another blockchain trounced Ethereum. Buterin didn’t seem so fazed by the idea – except if the project were TRON. Buterin is an admirer of the Zcash project, remarks regarding which he has made in the past, and was also welcoming enough of Ethereum Classic – but for TRON, a project that regularly throws jibes at Ethereum, Buterin has no appreciation.
[If TRON overtakes Ethereum]…I will have lost a certain amount of hope for humanity., says Buterin
With the debate still raging about Ethereum is a security – recent reports see SEC chairman Jay Clayton saying otherwise – Shin also asked Buterin if he was worried if the project’s crowdsale could possibly be violating securities laws. Buterin was not concerned,
I mean, we definitely have our lawyers and legal teams, and they’re definitely watching the situation closely, but so far, we haven’t seen any reason to be worried for ourselves.
One audience member asked what Buterin thought the first mainstream use case would be, and what he thought of rumors of Facebook launching a crypto on WhatsApp. Buterin responded,
Oh, so, for the first one, I would say things I am kind of near-term optimistic about include…I mean, first of all, in the decentralized finance space. Second of all, gaming, and I do mean gaming as in video games, not as in a euphemism for casinos or what not. Third, on the non-financial side, identity credentials, key revocation, and all of those things… Facebook coin, I honestly don’t know enough about it to be able to comment.
The interview is extensive and well-worth watching in full. It can be viewed below and a transcript of the session can be viewed here.
