As a leader in the blockchain field, Ethereum has always attracted the attention of global investors and developers. However, a series of controversies surrounding the Ethereum Foundation and its founder Vitalik Buterin have recently attracted widespread attention. In particular, the transparency of the Ethereum Foundation's spending and Vitalik Buterin's attitude towards decentralized finance (DeFi) have sparked heated discussions in the community.
According to recent reports, the Ethereum Foundation spends about $100 million per year, mainly on project funding and developer salaries. However, the details of these expenditures are not transparent, leading to doubts about the flow of funds. For example, some analysts pointed out that if the Ethereum Foundation continues to operate at its current spending rate, the ETH (Ether) in its hands may be exhausted in just eight years. Such concerns have caused panic in the community, and many people have begun to question the foundation's financial management strategy and future sustainability.
Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, responded that the expenditure is mainly used to support developers and projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, and part of the funds must be paid in legal currency, so a certain amount of ETH needs to be gradually sold. Although this explanation has alleviated the outside world's doubts to a certain extent, it still cannot completely eliminate the community's concerns about transparency. It is reported that the Ethereum Foundation is currently preparing a new expenditure report to allow the public to review the use of the budget.
At the same time, facing external doubts, Vitalik shared part of the content of the report to be released, which lists the expenditures of the Ethereum Foundation from 2022 to 2023. The largest expenditure is new institutions, including the open source software foundation Nomic Foundation, decentralized research DRC, L2 data analysis platform L2Beat, and cryptography application research 0xPARC, accounting for 36.5%, followed by L1 research and development, community development, application ZK, internal operations, developer platform, and L2 research and development.
When netizens curiously asked Vitalik how much he earns, he also said that as a co-founder of the fund, his annual salary is 182,000 Singapore dollars, equivalent to about 140,000 US dollars. The Ethereum blockchain created by Vitalik has a market value of 310 billion US dollars, but his salary is much less than that of other big names in the cryptocurrency circle. For example, Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, received a salary of 4.7 million US dollars last year.
However, Vitalik’s wealth continues to rise with the value of Ethereum. Vitalik revealed that 90% of his personal net worth is in the form of Ethereum (ETH). This disclosure of information is intended to dispel public suspicion of potential conflicts between his personal interests and the Ethereum Foundation. It shows that Vitalik’s interests are highly aligned with those of the Ethereum Foundation, and his personal wealth is closely linked to the success of the Ethereum ecosystem.
In addition, Vitalik’s views on DeFi have also attracted widespread attention recently. Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, pointed out that Vitalik has some "skeptical" attitude towards DeFi. This surprised many community members because the value of Ethereum depends largely on the prosperity of DeFi. In the Ethereum ecosystem, DeFi has become a core component, and it is unclear why Vitalik would want to reduce the construction of DeFi protocols.
In response, Vitalik said he is very concerned about the over-financialization of the Ethereum ecosystem, a trend that could deviate from the development goals of more transformative applications, such as decentralized governance and public products. Of course, he is not against the concept of DeFi, but is critical of some unsustainable DeFi applications. He is uneasy about short-term profit models such as liquidity mining, because these models often rely on unstable token issuance and lack long-term value support. He would rather see applications that are durable and in line with the principles of decentralization.
V God believes that DeFi should be committed to solving problems in the traditional financial system, such as improving financial inclusion, reducing transaction costs and increasing the liquidity of funds. V God believes that DeFi should not only be a paradise for cryptocurrency investors, but should become a financial system that ordinary people can also participate in and benefit from.
Vitalik Buterin's views sparked heated discussions in the community. Some people supported his view, believing that some DeFi projects do have centralization risks and that their benefits often come from the internal circulation of the crypto market rather than external value creation. However, many people were dissatisfied with this, believing that Vitalik Buterin's attitude could have a negative impact on Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem, limiting innovation and diversity.
In general, the Ethereum Foundation's financial transparency issues and Vitalik Buterin's views on DeFi reflect the challenges currently facing the cryptocurrency and blockchain fields. On the one hand, it is necessary to ensure the transparency and rational use of funds to maintain the trust of the community and the stability of the ecosystem; on the other hand, DeFi needs to be properly guided so that it can truly serve the development of society and the economy.
In the future, it will be closely watched how the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik Buterin will respond to these challenges and how they will adjust their strategies to meet the expectations of the community. As blockchain technology continues to develop and be applied, the actions of Ethereum and its founder Vitalik Buterin will continue to influence the development of the entire industry.
