Original author: Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum
Original translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
Editor's note: This is a rare instance of public self-criticism from Vitalik. He directly points out that Ethereum has been almost absent from various social issues in recent years and proposes a new framework - "sanctuary tech".
This post represents one of the most valuable internal discussions in the Ethereum community: what exactly are we building and for whom. The full text is as follows:
In the past year, many people I’ve interacted with have been concerned about two things:
First is the direction of the world: government control and surveillance, war, corporate power and surveillance, the degradation of technology and corporate waste, social media becoming a battlefield of information, AI and its entanglement with all of the above...
Second is a more painful reality: Ethereum does not seem to have genuinely improved people's lives on these issues, even in the dimensions we care the most about - such as freedom, privacy, the security of digital life, and community self-organization.
It is easy to empathize with the first issue; everyone can lament together that the beauty of the world is fading, darkness is advancing, and ruthless elites at the top are driving all of this. But acknowledging the problem is easy; the hard part is genuinely pointing out a way forward, proposing a concrete solution that can improve the situation.
The second issue has weighed on my mind, and on the minds of many of the smartest and most idealistic people in Ethereum. Political meme coins have moved to Solana, or various zero-sum gambling applications are running on chains that produce blocks in 250 milliseconds; I personally have never felt anger or fear. But what truly unsettles me is that in recent years, amidst those low-intensity online information wars, international overstepping of corporate and government power, and various real-world problems, Ethereum's role has been extremely limited. What are the technologies that truly bring liberation? Starlink is the most conspicuous one; locally running open-source large models are another, Signal is the third, and Community Notes approaches this issue from another angle.
One response is to say "stop dreaming, we need to face reality, finance is our main stage, just focus on that." But ultimately, this is hollow. Financial freedom and security are, of course, crucial. But clearly, a completely free, open, sovereign, and anti-inflationary financial system, even if established, can only solve part of the problems; most of our deep concerns about the world remain unsolved. It’s fine for individuals to focus on finance, but we need to be part of a larger whole and be able to speak out on other issues.
At the same time, Ethereum cannot fix the whole world. Ethereum is a "poorly shaped tool": beyond a certain boundary, "fixing the world" means a projection of power, resembling a centralized political entity rather than a decentralized technology community.
So what can we do? I believe the Ethereum community should position itself as part of building a "sanctuary tech" ecosystem: these free and open-source technologies enable people to live, work, communicate with each other, manage risks, accumulate wealth, and collaborate around common goals - all with resilience to external pressures as the optimization goal.
The goal is not to reshape the world in Ethereum's image, not to have all finance become intermediated, all governance completed through DAOs, or everyone integrating blockchain UBI into society restoring wallets. The goal is precisely the opposite: de-totalization. It is to lower the stakes of this heavenly war by preventing winners from taking all (i.e., comprehensive control over others) and preventing losers from suffering total defeat. Create digital stable islands in times of chaos. Make interdependence unweaponizable.
Ethereum's role is to create "digital spaces" where different entities can cooperate and interact. Communication channels can facilitate interaction, but communication channels themselves are not "space": they cannot enable you to create a unique object that normatively represents a certain social arrangement that changes over time. Money is a significant example, a multi-signature wallet that can replace members is another - its durability surpasses any single person or public key, and various markets and governance structures are the third. And there are more.
I believe it is time to invest more deeply with clearer understanding. Do not try to become Apple or Google, viewing crypto as a technological race to enhance efficiency or increase glossiness. Instead, we should build our part within the sanctuary tech ecosystem - that "leaderless shared digital space" that supports open finance and much more. More actively construct a full-stack ecosystem: extend upward to wallets and application layers (including AI as the interface), extend downward to operating systems, hardware, and even to physical and biological security levels.
Ultimately, technology without users is worthless. But we need to find those who truly need sanctuary tech, whether individuals or institutions. Optimize payments, DeFi, decentralized social and other applications accurately for these users and goals - these are precisely where centralized technology does not intend. We have many allies, including many people outside the "crypto circle." It is time to move forward collaboratively with an open mindset.
Rhythm Supplement Comments
@MarkSmitb: If Starlink is a liberating technology, I cannot agree. But handing trust over to one of the most corrupt individuals - Elon Musk, seems to completely contradict the essence of cryptocurrency.
Vitalik's reply: Yes, but it does indeed give people more freedom. The answer is not to oppose Starlink, but to support more than ten organizations with different positions to each build alternative systems similar to Starlink. Ideally, there should be at least one open-source system that supports using open protocols for handling payments and preventing DDoS attacks.
@hashdag: The overall tone of this post is completely contrary to what you posted a few weeks ago. At that time you also said that trust in Ethereum should be independent of your political stance and moral judgment standards.
Vitalik's reply: Good question. There are mainly two paths to influence global affairs:
1. Influence the structure of the world: in a way that is neutral to specific situations, but at the same time has clear tendencies, leading to ideal outcomes (e.g., empowering marginalized groups). This inevitably involves value judgments about "what high-level characteristics the world should possess."
2. Influence specific individual contexts: this inevitably involves personal propositions regarding these specific events.
I believe it is healthier for the Ethereum community as a whole to position itself in executing path 1 rather than path 2. The Ethereum Foundation EF does not represent Ethereum, but even the foundation should strongly lean towards path 1. Meanwhile, every contributor to Ethereum is not some "deified" incarnation of Ethereum; they are living people, so they inevitably will have views on path 2. Different people will have various "side jobs" related to path 2 - on a small scale, managing a social media account with distinct positional preferences; on a large scale, actively participating in ground-level practices.
Of course, based on statistical averages and cluster dynamics, different sub-communities will ultimately exhibit different collective tendencies on various path 2 issues. We should not pretend such situations do not exist, but the wise approach is to maintain the bottom line, making it clear that these tendencies are not "official positions."
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