This podcast is the first part of Wushuo founder Colin Wu’s conversation with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. It mainly discusses the following issues: recalling the story of Ethereum’s relationship with China, he emphasized Wanxiang’s “life-saving” support and Bihu’s memory; discussing the reasons why the BCH large block was not successful; the cultural differences between Ethereum and Bitcoin; why the concept of Ethereum is recognized as the world’s computer; why the blockchain is the only trustworthy one; the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war on Vitalik himself How to make a huge difference.
It should be noted that Vitalik was interviewed in non-native Chinese, and some expressions may not be very accurate. Readers are requested to be understanding and tolerant. Audio recordings are generated by GPT, so there may be some errors.
Listen to the full podcast:
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Recalling China: Wanxiang may have saved Ethereum’s life. I have a deep memory of Bihu.
Colin: The first question is about your experience in China. Can you recall that experience in 2014-2015? At that time, you came into contact with many people in the Chinese currency circle, such as Wanxiang and Shen Bo. They are still one of the most supportive teams in China for Ethereum. I heard that many people rejected you at that time, including some very famous people now. Can you share your experience at that time?
Vitalik: The first time I came to China was in 2014. I stayed for three weeks and went to Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen respectively. I met many Chinese teams, many exchanges, many miners, and some projects. I remember going to Huobi and OKCOIN and seeing how big these companies were, with more employees than exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, etc.
I found that China has a very developed ecosystem and many large companies, but no one abroad does these things. I also found that there were already a lot of miners in China at that time, and there were not many applications in 2014, but by 2015, I had a lot of contact with teams such as Wanxiang and Shen Bo. I stayed in Shanghai for almost two months, and they were working on some very interesting applications.
Among them is a company that digitizes some assets and puts some assets into a coin. Each coin may represent 1/1,000 or 1/10,000 of the asset. In this way, different people can participate in some very expensive asset investments.
In 2017, there were some big projects in China, and I remember Bihu was one of them. At that time, they had already made a very interesting plan to support creators with digital currency and bring benefits to content creators. What impresses me is that they are not just making a demo, but an actual application that everyone can use, and there are already many users.
In 2014 I saw miners, and in 2015 I saw more practical applications. I think there are many very interesting people in this community, but relatively little attention has been paid to this community abroad. So, I think 2015 is a particularly important period for the Ethereum community.
After the launch of the Ethereum main chain in 2015, the foundation had almost no funds. We're almost out of cash, and we're almost out of Bitcoin, so we need to sell Ethereum to support the developers. Wanxiang purchased 410,000 Ethereum at a price of $1.2, spending a total of $500,000 to support our foundation. This matter is very important to the foundation and may have saved the foundation’s life. For Wanxiang, this is also a very good investment.
Colin: Yes, Bihu was indeed an important supporter of Ethereum, and its founder was very influential in China at the time. Unfortunately, Bihu later closed. In the past two years, decentralized social media has only begun to become more popular.
Vitalik: There are some regulatory issues in China, but I found that there are similar problems abroad. Many interesting projects started in 2015 and 2016, but as of 2020, their development is still limited. A big part of the reason is transaction fees. If these projects want to truly develop and become mainstream applications, they must have the required TPS. A successful application may require 100~1,000 TPS, but our chain can only support 4~5 TPS at that time.
Many applications are competing and want to put their transactions on the chain, so transaction fees have become very expensive. In this case, it seems that only DeFi will survive.
You can imagine if you are a regular social media user and you discover that there is a new social media app, but every time you post or do anything, you have to pay $1, $5, sometimes even $15 , then this is completely unfeasible. But for financial applications, this does not pose a problem. So I think it is a pity that many decentralized social and other projects did not survive the DeFi Summer period.
But now we have a lot of L2 solutions with much lower transaction fees. Now many people are paying more attention to the topic of L2. I very much look forward to decentralized social networking and many other projects becoming active in the future.
Colin: Maybe you can talk to the founder of Bihu and see if you can get him to restart Bihu. Now is a good time.
BUTA: Yeah, sure.
Recall BCH: The ideal of large blocks is more correct, but the execution ability is not enough
Colin: The next question I want to talk to you about is that I remember that you were quite supportive of large blocks when it came to Bitcoin’s block size issue. The birth of BCH in 2017 brought this dispute to its peak. You have also written an article recently, mentioning that you have a lot of new thoughts on this issue, and believe that the reasons for the failure of large blocks may be insufficient technical capabilities and execution capabilities, as well as the emergence of scammers like Craig Wright. Can you recall your interactions with Wu Jihan, Roger and others at that time? What new thoughts do you have on this matter now?
Vitalik: This question is indeed interesting. Unfortunately, my Chinese was not good enough at that time, so I did not have the opportunity to learn more about Wu Jihan and other miners who supported large blocks. I didn’t get a chance to really get to know their personalities, why they support big blocks, what their vision is for Bitcoin.
Roger Ver is relatively simple. He is not the kind of "scholar-type" person who reads a lot of books or writes articles. He is a more practical person who knows that the value of Bitcoin lies in its existence as a new currency. If a currency is to be used for payments, it needs enough block space to support a large number of transactions. Therefore, his point of view is relatively simple and direct.
And some people who are more "academic" often think about longer-term issues and explore things that others are not willing to think about. These strong thinkers can sometimes bring very important ideas to the world, and without them we might make bigger mistakes.
But they sometimes fall into their own world and lack enough contact with the reality of the outside world. This is just like some people criticizing our core developers of Ethereum and asking how many smart contracts you have participated in and how many DApps you have written. Similar situations will occur in many industries, especially industries such as blockchain and politics.
If these thinking people have insufficient contact with the real world, their opinions will often be very "internally consistent" but ignore some things that are important to people.
These issues were sometimes raised in the Chinese community during the debate about small blocks and large blocks in 2015 and 2016. Supporters of large blocks often emphasize that they care more about users and pay more attention to the actual world, while supporters of small blocks pay more attention to technical details and are more developers and researchers. So this creates conflict.
I mentioned in the article I wrote later that my current conclusion is that the ideal of large blocks is more correct, but the execution capabilities of the supporters of large blocks are indeed insufficient. Many big block proponents made a lot of mistakes when writing their code, which is why the community finally started to support small blocks.
But later we discovered that the proponents of small blocks also made big mistakes. For example, they said at the time that Bitcoin should be L1, as digital gold, while L2 can be the payment layer. The L2 they mentioned is the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a very interesting concept and I appreciate the idea myself.
However, the actual implementation of the Lightning Network has many problems, is relatively unstable, and its implementation is also relatively centralized. These issues are also described in Roger Ver's book.
So from an academic point of view, the idea of large blocks is very beautiful, but in the real world there are many problems.
Proponents of small blocks don’t really focus on the importance of payments and applications. They believe that others are focused on payment issues, and their role is to provide a technical solution to meet these needs. But they didn't put enough effort into thinking about whether this solution could actually be realized.
Therefore, the development of the Lightning Network is relatively slow now. Although there has been some progress recently, most people in the Bitcoin community are still paying attention to the price of Bitcoin, and are more thinking about when Bitcoin can reach the goal of 1 million US dollars. Their The biggest hero is Michael Saylor because his company bought a lot of Bitcoin.
Therefore, I am not optimistic about the technical development of the Bitcoin community now.
The price logic of Bitcoin and other currencies is much more complex. In fact, no one knows where the prices of digital currencies come from. This is probably the biggest problem in our industry and an important issue in the modern market.
The cultural differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum: tycoons and developers?
Colin: You recently posted a very interesting piece of content. I also forwarded it the day before yesterday. Many people found it interesting. It was the people who used GPT to generate Bitcoin and Ethereum. There is a tycoon on the Bitcoin side, who is very rich, while there is a developer on the Ethereum side. It seems that the most important thing for Bitcoin holders is to make their coins more and more expensive and make themselves richer and richer.
But many supporters of Ethereum don’t seem to care that much about money and have made a lot of donations. They may be more concerned about building better public goods. Is this also a cultural difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Vitalik: This is indeed an interesting topic. In fact, from 2011 to 2013, the Bitcoin community was very diverse. I remember when I entered the Bitcoin community in 2011, I discovered that the Bitcoin forum had a section called "Politics and Society". I particularly liked this section. There were some libertarians and socialists there, and they were debating among themselves about some very interesting issues like how to deal with medical issues, whether the government should get involved in the medical industry, and so on. People have very different views on these issues.
These topics were debated very civilly. If you’re aware of the current debates on Twitter, you’ll realize that such civilized debate is nearly impossible. But in that forum, everyone can express their opinions in a civilized manner, even though my opinions and yours may be completely different. At that time, if you wanted to reply to a certain post, you might write an article of about 300 words. You needed to seriously write your own opinions rather than simply comment. This culture is very special.
The early community culture of Bitcoin actually also paid a lot of attention to public goods, human future technology and ideas. However, by 2014, the Bitcoin community began to splinter.
Why is it split? The reason is obvious. Before 2014, Bitcoin had few competitors. If you are interested in digital currencies, your only option is Bitcoin. But by 2014, first, the big block vs. small block debate emerged; second, Ethereum emerged as the first currency that could compete with Bitcoin. Until now, Ethereum is still the only currency that can truly compete with Bitcoin.
So some people who were more like me and early Ethereum thinking chose Ethereum. If you prefer the Bitcoin community, you will naturally stay in the Bitcoin community.
By 2017, everyone needs to make a choice: Bitcoin that supports small blocks or Bitcoin that supports large blocks. But in fact, as early as 2015, everyone had already made their choice. So now, we can roughly see the existence of at least two, or even three blockchain cultures. Now, there are many other projects, such as BNB, Solana, TRON, etc., each of them has its own unique characteristics and different cultures of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The current situation is a bit like the cultural differences between different countries. Just like before the Internet, there were huge cultural gaps between different countries.
I prefer the word and concept of "World Computer"
Colin: If, as you say, Bitcoin has become less diverse now, people may now only think of it as digital gold. So if you were asked to describe Ethereum, what would you tell everyone what you want Ethereum to be? Is it a network nation, or is it the decentralized world computer that everyone often calls? What kind of existence do you want it to be?
Vitalik: I actually prefer the word and concept of "world computer" because to me, it represents many things. I hope that Ethereum will not only be a chain, but also an ecosystem that can support a variety of applications.
This reminds me of an interesting point in early Ethereum culture: when I started working on Ethereum, I thought Ethereum was just Bitcoin plus smart contracts. Because before that, I was a member of the Bitcoin community and also participated in some other projects trying to add functionality to the blockchain. I have an idea, why add functionality? Why can't we add a programming language and allow everyone to use it to write various functions? So when I started working on Ethereum, my original intention was Bitcoin plus smart contracts. But our core developer Gavin Wood, before joining Ethereum, had no interest in Bitcoin at all. He thinks Bitcoin is boring. His understanding of Ethereum is actually more direct. What he wants is a combination of open source technology and shared storage. I can explain this concept in more detail.
We can look back at the history of software. At the beginning, all our applications were open source and free. You can download them at will, run them on your computer, check the source code at any time, and modify the source code to do different things.
But after entering the 1950s, some large companies began to participate in this industry. For example, Microsoft began to launch the Windows operating system and no longer disclosed the source code, claiming that its code was copyrighted and could not be copied casually. This phenomenon makes many people dissatisfied, because all software before computers can be completely owned and modified by users, just like you own a car. You can modify any part and repair any damaged part. When the computer industry becomes controlled by large companies, many people no longer have the freedom to control the applications and software they purchase. Although the software is yours, it does not entirely belong to you. This gave rise to the free software movement.
By the late 1990s, open source software became an important topic. Today, many software are open source. For example, the operating system I am talking to you on is a completely open source example. Nowadays, open source software plays an important role in our lives.
However, before the 2000s, applications were mostly stand-alone applications, with users using software alone, similar to Microsoft Word or stand-alone games. After 2000, many multi-person collaboration applications appeared, such as Google Docs. The biggest difference from Microsoft Word is that Google Docs allows multiple people to edit files at the same time. Gaming has also changed a lot, with massively multiplayer online games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft allowing players to interact in a virtual world.
This change brings about a problem: if many people use an application together, then the application needs to share storage. For example, in a multi-person collaboration document, where are the files stored? In social networks, where is user information stored? These problems can usually only be solved through centralized servers. The biggest problem with centralized servers is that users cannot fully control their digital lives.
For example, Microsoft Word's file format is proprietary, making it difficult to edit these files with other software. And if all important information and operations are on a centralized server, this will lead to a worse situation. A centralized company can change the rules, increase prices, or even shut down services at any time, just like some startups rely on Facebook or Twitter's API. If any of the applications are successful, Facebook or Twitter can easily compete by modifying the API so that they Can quickly replace other companies' business.
Gavin Wood is thinking about these problems. He believes that creating a decentralized shared storage system may be able to solve these problems and become the second version of free and open source software. He thinks this is an interesting topic, and I also think this topic is very meaningful, because blockchain is not only a financial tool, it can also play a huge role in the software industry. Now, applications such as decentralized social networking and decentralized document editing have begun to appear, such as DDocs (a decentralized Google Docs).
This idea is very attractive, but some people will ask, is Ethereum a digital country? I think this concept is a bit exaggerated, as the state provides much more services than Ethereum can provide. Ethereum is just a series of digital programs, while normal countries solve a wider range of problems, including security, education, medical care and other public goods. If Ethereum starts to intervene in all these industries, it will no longer be neutral, which may reduce people's willingness to participate in the Ethereum ecosystem.
The only thing worthy of trust is the blockchain
Colin: I want to talk to you about another political topic. Last year, the United States approved an Ethereum ETF. This was actually a surprise to everyone because Trump had not yet come to power. What do you think about this issue? From your perspective, will you deliberately keep some distance from countries like China and the United States? Because you have also expressed that you believe that blockchain and cryptocurrency are best used in places where centralized power is not so strong. Did the Russo-Ukrainian war have a big impact on many of your ideas? It seems like you were very involved in this after it happened.
Vitalik: First of all, I think blockchain is something that belongs to the whole world. A very important advantage of blockchain is that it can solve the problem of trust. If you look at other industries, such as AI, there may only be a few centers - Silicon Valley, London, or Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen in China. But blockchain is very decentralized. For example, in the United States, some applications are concentrated in New York and Silicon Valley; there are also very important centers in Berlin; in Asia, there are also many applications in places such as Singapore and China. Therefore, the biggest advantage of blockchain is that it can play a role in some places where trust issues are particularly serious.
Argentina is an interesting example. The biggest problem facing Argentina is inflation, with an average annual inflation rate of 30%. They have become accustomed to living in this economic environment for a long time and have completely lost confidence in legal currency. Recently, some people in Argentina deposited US dollars in local banks. As a result, the government suddenly announced that all US dollars in banks would be forcibly converted into legal tender, and the value of these legal tenders changed 2 to 3 times on the same day.
This situation has caused everyone to completely lose trust in banks. Argentina also has problems integrating with the international financial system. While the U.S., China and Europe have highly developed financial systems, Argentina, like many African countries, has relatively little access to the global financial system. It is in these edge areas that blockchain may have the greatest impact because it solves the problem of trust. This is a question of trust, especially between countries.
Ten or fifteen years ago, most people in the world used American services. At that time, no one paid special attention to these issues, because the United States values freedom of speech and openness, and the behavior on the platform is relatively tolerant, and accounts will not be closed easily.
But things have changed in the last decade, especially with the Snowden scandal in 2013 and the issue of account closures for political reasons in 2020. Today, no decentralized platform is trusted globally, and perhaps the only one that can do that is blockchain. Because blockchain is the foundation of trust, it ensures that the platform will not close accounts, steal user funds, or leak personal information.
Therefore, in today's changing world, I feel that blockchain and related technologies have great advantages. I have spent a lot of time in fringe areas in recent years, such as Argentina, Thailand, Montenegro and Turkey, because I think blockchain should be an international thing. We should not let it become an increasingly centralized technology. So I had an idea recently, which is that if a blockchain is theoretically decentralized and free, but if most of the teams are concentrated in the same place and share the same values, then when the next crisis occurs, they may Make mistakes and end up losing global trust. So, I would be more concerned about this.
The Russo-Ukrainian war has completely changed me. I may be sentenced to prison if I return to Russia.
Vitalik: The outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war really surprised me. Just a month after it happened, I saw information that the Russian army was near Ukraine and began to mobilize troops and tanks. I didn't expect such a big thing to happen. I thought Russia was only concerned about some issues, such as the expansion of NATO. They just wanted to express that they were strong and worthy of respect, and they didn't want others to do things they didn't like, but I didn't expect them to fully invade a country, or if they invaded, it would happen slowly, as they did in 2014.
But in early February, when I talked to some Russians, they also felt that nothing big would happen. Until February 24th, I remember I was in Denver, and I watched the news at night, and at that time everyone basically knew that there was going to be a big conflict. When this actually happened, my thoughts changed so much that I didn't know how to express it at all.
I can start by telling you what happened. Around 6 p.m. on February 23rd, I had finished all my activities for the day and was sitting in my hotel room talking to my father, and we knew that Russia was probably going to do something big. At around 7pm, my dad sent me a message saying that Russian rockets had started hitting buildings in eastern Ukrainian cities. I knew then that something really big was starting to happen.
Next, I didn't sleep for three or four hours. Normally I would go back to the hotel to rest, but that night I stayed up almost until midnight and kept watching the news. Then I sent out my first tweet saying that I was totally against this, updated almost every minute, and just stood there in complete shock.
When I woke up the next morning, I was shocked again. Why? Because Ukraine’s official Twitter account posted an Ethereum address. My first reaction at the time was, how could a national government directly publish a transaction address on Twitter? I wonder if Russian hackers hacked into a Ukrainian Twitter account and then posted an address controlled by Russia.
So I warned everyone on Twitter to be careful. It might be a hacker act and don’t trade casually. At the same time, I started contacting some people I knew, especially those connected to big cities, to confirm the authenticity of this address.
Later, through someone close to the U.S. government and through a Ukrainian team, I confirmed that the address was genuine and that people could donate. I posted a second tweet clarifying my previous mistake.
An hour later, my family sent me a message saying, "You know, now that you have made this decision, you may not be able to return to Russia in the future."
That's when I realized that I wasn't just witnessing the war, I was deeply involved in it. Now for me, returning to the country of my birth could mean facing extreme risks and possibly even a sentence of 10 to 15 years.
I felt then that I was no longer a child.
What I am facing is a major historical event, and I have now clearly chosen a position, not only my attitude towards the war, but also who I support and who I oppose. This made a huge difference in my personal life. I didn't know what to think at first.
First, I donated some money to Ukraine, and then a month later, I saw the news and learned that Russia had taken over a city and innocent Ukrainians were killed, maybe 500 to 1,000 people. That situation made me very angry.
So I decided to donate again, this time $5 million. This decision solidified my stance and I feel much the same as I did on February 24th.
War is common in history, but in our personal lives, such large-scale wars are completely abnormal. This is the first time we have faced such a serious conflict. So in this case, although I was a little confused at first and didn't know what to do, I knew that at this moment, those who need help should get it. If the good guys do nothing, the bad guys will succeed. So I tried to help Ukraine, in any way I could.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: (Foresight News)
Original editor: Wu Shuo Blockchain
"V God recalls the past in China!" This organization saved Ethereum’s life. Will it be sentenced if it returns to Russia? 』This article was first published in "CryptoCity"
