Ethereum Blockchain Is at Risk If Decentralization Is Just a Catchphrase, Buterin Says
Speaking at EthCC in France, Ethereum’s founder said developers need to stay true to crypto’s principles amid a wave of corporate blockchain adoption.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wants the crypto industry to grow up fast — stressing that the industry is at an “inflection point.”
Speaking in front of a packed room at the Ethereum Community Conference, in Cannes, France, Buterin used his keynote to deliver a clear-eyed reality check: Decentralization, he argued, must evolve from a catchphrase to a concrete set of user guarantees — or risk becoming another hollow promise.
As the industry has gone mainstream with endorsements from major corporations and political figures, builders need to return to the ecosystem’s key ideals surrounding decentralization and building for users' needs, Buterin said.
In his typical jeans and relaxed dark T-shirt uniform, Buterin laid out practical “tests” that he said every crypto project should pass. These include 1) the walk-away test. If the company behind an application disappears, do users keep their assets? And 2) the insider attack test: How much damage can rogue insiders or compromised front-ends cause? And 3) whether it has a trusted computing base: How many lines of code must be trusted to protect users’ funds or data?