Vitalik Buterin is one of the most influential people in crypto. Nine years ago, he dreamed up Ethereum as a way to use Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology for all kinds of uses beyond currency. Since then, it has emerged as the foundational layer of what proponents say will be a new, open-source, decentralized internet.
Meanwhile, despite the technology he invented changing the world, Buterin has defied the crypto bro stereotype, focusing more on learning and ideas than wealth and status. He recently visited Ukraine and spoke with fortune contributor Anna Tutova, shares his thoughts on everything from global politics to the potential of crypto to help people trapped in crisis and war situations. This includes Ukraine itself, which has reportedly received more than $184 million in crypto donations—including $5 million from Buterin, who denounced Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion.
Buterin also discussed the latest developments in the world of Ethereum, including plans to make the platform more scalable. Here is an edited version of the conversation.
Anna Tutova: Can you tell us about your trip to Kiev? How do you like it? How was the conference?
Vitalik Buterin: The trip to Kyiv itself was very interesting because I usually go places by plane and it is quite quick and convenient. The plane did not land in Ukraine during the war. I arrived by train from Warsaw, and it was a long, long 18-hour train ride, although it was also the most comfortable 18-hour train ride I’ve ever had.
We stayed at a hotel downtown. I got a chance to see different parts of the city that day and the next morning as well. Then I had a meeting with the deputy prime minister of Ukraine and attended the Kyiv Tech Summit. I think one of the reasons I wanted to do it was that I wanted to see what people would do at the peak of technology in the middle of a war, what people would say, what people would do. until.
I got a chance to talk to some hackers. It’s a small group, but it’s definitely a very dedicated and devoted group, there are people working on blockchain-based projects trying to do identity for refugees or cryptocurrency-based applications, etc. In a panel with government officials, we held some interesting discussions about cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and how all these different ideas can be valuable for Ukraine. It’s not a big event, but it still feels like a very high quality event. I thought it was a great community.
Vitalik Buterin/Anna Tutova
AT: Can you tell me more about your favorite projects there? What kind of jobs do you need during this war?
VB: People told me that cryptocurrencies were very important as a way for the government to get much needed resources and supplies in the first few weeks when the war started, when no other financial system worked and foreign governments did not yet. started bringing supplies yet. And cryptocurrency continues to be important to many different groups, just as a form of fundraising and as a way to move money to people.
Aside from cryptocurrency as money, I think digital identity applications are interesting. Because there are many refugees who obviously leave quickly without many things, and need a way to interact with the economy to prove that they can be trusted, to prove themselves, so that people will be willing. work with them and can provide help and goods and services to them. And it’s interesting to see that people are starting to use the advanced ideas about the zero-knowledge (ZK) things that I’ve been talking about for the past two years. There is also an interesting project to integrate Ukrainian digital ID. And there is one group that is trying to make an integration between all of them into the Gitcoin passport.
AT: How do you like Kiev?
VB: Kyiv is really easy because it looks like a normal European city. The government area is definitely very militarized – there are few soldiers. And there are many posters such as, “Be brave like Ukraine.” But other than that, it seems like people are going about their lives and getting groceries, going to restaurants, doing everything normal. And one of the ways that people explained to me, it’s almost just to continue to live a normal life in the middle of the invasion.
This food is great. One of the best sushi restaurants I’ve seen is in Kyiv. This is called Ikigai. And aside from that, we just have all kinds of food, some Ukrainian, some vegan-friendly, Georgian places. I was impressed. I definitely hope to come back another time.
AT: Sounds like you had a great trip. Was it scary for you when you were in Ukraine because of the war?
VB: I definitely don’t know what to expect. I obviously follow things on the Internet and on Twitter. Theoretically I know that Kyiv is about 450 kilometers from the front line at this point. But in the same time, I don’t know what to expect. So, will there be some missile strikes? What does Ukrainian security itself look like? And just all kinds very unknown, unknown thing. However, in general, it ended up just being more normal in many ways than I expected.
AT: How do you generally see the development of the crypto industry in Ukraine? You travel quite a lot, you see different countries, different jurisdictions. At what level is crypto in Ukraine?
VB: So, Ukrainian crypto community in general must be strong. Even a many of these projects are internationally known to us, some of the founders are Ukrainian. I think NEAR Protocol is obviously a good example there.
The Ethereum Foundation has several Ukrainians. And many developers are very good and smart. And the other thing, which is interesting and unique, is that the government is very interested in participating in this space and trying to be active and progressive.
It reminds I have a lot of trips to Estonia, I have been about five years ago. Talk to the government it feels like talking to a startup. And Ukraine really gives you the same feeling. Also, I have been to Montenegro recently, even the government there is trying to implement blockchain laws and trying to be blockchain friendly. It seems like Eastern Europe is definitely a place where people are really want to do things and the very active involvement of people in institutions and governments is interesting.
One contrast might be Latin America. I am also very impressed with the crypto community, especially Argentina and Brazil. I was just in eastern Mexico about a month ago. And if that’s the case, you’re definitely not see as much government attention.
AT: Let’s talk about Ethereum. You recently achieved a big milestone, the Ethereum Merge, the transition from proof-of-work that uses energy to proof-of-stake, but let’s start with a more general question: How do you get crypto?
VB: I first got into crypto in 2011. I heard about Bitcoin on the internet. I heard about Bitcoin again from my father, and I think it is interesting. I switched to Bitcoin The forum and I started looking for someone who would be willing to give me a job that pays Bitcoin, and I found it someone who is willing to pay five Bitcoins-which at that time was $4-for every article that I will write for his blog. I started writing articles, so I started my Bitcoin career as a writer. I did Bitcoin magazine for two years.
At 2013, I dropped out of university and became a Bitcoin person full time. I also started a nomadic adventure then-what I thought it would be just a six-month trip around the world to explore all the different Bitcoin communities. But then at the end of the trip I came up with the idea for Ethereum, and from there the trip just continued to get more and more complete. So, I’ve been walking for about nine years now. However, I got the idea for the theory after looking at some other ideas that other people had.
People in Israel, for example, will try to use the Bitcoin blockchain to do things other than just Bitcoin currency. And I felt it This idea is very interesting. I want to make a more powerful and more general version so that people can build any kind of application. So, I started Ethereum, then the project it just keeps growing.
AT: So what are the next steps to improve the scalability of Ethereum, and what are your milestones?
VB: So Ethereum The roadmap to scale is this approach called the rollup-centric roadmap. It’s like that A hybrid between the Bitcoin-like roadmap, where they basically say, “We’re not going to change Layer-1. Layer-1 is what it’s going to be. But we’re going to create a second layer on top. So, with Bitcoin there’s a Lightning network, and we’re trying measure everything about this Layer-2 that connects to Layer-1, but it works. different, so they have more dimensions. This is compared to the more scalable approach of EOS or Solana, which basically focuses on keeping everyone in Layer-1, but making Layer-1 itself as robust.
People don’t want the network to be centralized, but people also understand the need for functionality. So, this rollup-centric the roadmap makes some improvements to Layer-1 to make it possible to build this Layer-2 protocol that can support many other transactions. Then it’s up to the Layer-2 protocol to create the stuff that supports the transaction. There are many such platforms: Optimism, Arbitrum, Scroll, Starkware, zkSync. Also Polygon, which started as a more reliable and somewhat centralized sidechain, but they hired this really cool zero-science team and they’re going to be more like a rollup.
AT: So you mentioned a lot of zkEVM rollups and different Layer-2 solutions. What do you think about zero-knowledge proofs and zkEVMS?
VB: Proof of ZK as a technology will be as important as blockchain. I think, obviously, zero-knowledge proof is very powerful to improve privacy and increase scalability for our blockchain application. And the two technologies are very complementary. Because blocking gives you something like censorship resistance and guarantees that the rules are followed, like a smart contract. But to achieve these guarantees, blockchains sacrifice scalability, and they essentially sacrifice privacy. By default, you have no privacy on the blockchain. But zero-knowledge proof allows you to maintain censorship resistance and ensure that rules are followed, but you gain scalability and regain privacy. At some point, we will reach a world where we can start adding ZK evidence to everything.
AT: I see that you support it Scroll quite a lot.
VB: Yes, they have a good team, good people, they have worked hard to make zkEVM. I think the other team is very good-the Starkware team has used this more than anyone else, and I also have to thank you for just teaching me a lot of math behind how zk-SNARKS works. He contributed a lot to the development of the whole place, and also worked in Cairo, which is their own programming language for Starks.
And there is a project, which is above Cairo, which also makes zkEVMs-ImmutableX and some products under construction. In a lot of the case, there is an excellent compromise between decentralization and the kind of centralization that may be needed to make the application more efficient in the short term. I actually think that Starkware’s idea of validiums will obviously be a better thing for institutions to use than private blockchains that everyone was excited about five years ago. So he did a lot of good things. The Polygon team contributed a lot and zkEVM development is also good. The Loopring team also had zkEVM rollups running last year, when no one else was. I really like the community we’ve built.
Anna Tutova is the CEO of Coinstelegram, a crypto media and public relations company.