Vitalik on the return of Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin is the co-founder of Ethereum and Zuzalu. We had a fireside chat at Network School on the state of Ethereum, defi, prediction markets, AI, biotech, stablecoins, the Abundance Agenda, San Francisco, Zuzalu, and startup societies.

This discussion was held live at Network School. Apply at https://ns.com.

OUTLINE
0:00 - The state of Ethereum
02:13 - Would the average person use DeFi?
11:01 - Prediction markets from theory to reality
12:29 - Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance Agenda needs Ethereum
15:09 - Vitalik on AI doom
18:00 - Prompting is just higher order programming
24:05 - Physical constraints on the Skynet scenario
37:14 - Startup societies, network states, and Zuzalu
42:22 - Why crypto loves bio
52:01 - Why didn’t Vitalik build Ethereum anon?
54:55 - 1000X public goods
57:12 - Stablecoins are backed by dollars. So doesn't the US win if crypto wins?
1:05:20 - How does Ethereum become great again?
1:13:00 - Is SF losing its position as the center for tech?

REFERENCES
(1) Ethereum upgrades: https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/
(2) Ethereum’s next chapter: https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/04/28/next-chapter
(3) Slowing transactions on Ethereum: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42237162
(4) L2 scaling activity: https://l2beat.com/scaling/activity
(5) Rollup-centric Ethereum roadmap: https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/a-rollup-centric-ethereum-roadmap/4698
(6) Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s in 2025 and beyond: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/23/l1l2future.html
(7) L2 roadmap: https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/a-simple-l2-security-and-finalization-roadmap/23309
(8) Ethereum developers propose 150 million gas limit increase: https://www.ainvest.com/news/ethereum-developers-propose-150-million-gas-limit-increase-fusaka-hard-fork-2504/
(9) What is zkEVM: https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-zkevm
(10) Social recovery explained: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html
(11) Multisig explained: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html
(12) Account abstraction explained: https://blog.pantherprotocol.io/ethereum-account-abstraction-everything-you-need-to-know/
(13) Parity hack: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether
(14) Stablecoin transaction volume: https://blog.cex.io/ecosystem/stablecoin-landscape-34864
(15) What prediction markets saw: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/08/business/polymarket-election-trump-nightcap
(16) D/acc: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/05/dacc2.html
(17) P(doom): https://www.fastcompany.com/90994526/pdoom-explained-how-to-calculate-your-score-on-ai-apocalypse-metric
(18) DeepSeek r1: https://medium.com/@tahirbalarabe2/deepseek-r1-explained-chain-of-thought-reinforcement-learning-and-model-distillation-0eb165d928c9
(19) AI 2027: https://ai-2027.com/
(20) Zuzalu: https://www.zuzalu.city/
(21) Dunbar number: https://www.backoftheenvelope.xyz/p/is-there-a-dunbars-number-for-crypto
(22) e-Estonia: https://e-estonia.com/
(23) UK wastewater monitoring of SARS-CoV-2: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/monitoring-of-sars-cov-2-rna-in-england-wastewater-monthly-statistics-1-june-2021-to-7-march-2022/emhp-wastewater-monitoring-of-sars-cov-2-in-england-1-june-2021-to-7-march-2022
(24) Vitalik on Bitcoin Magazine: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/vitalik-buterin
(25) Zero knowledge proof: https://www.infisign.ai/blog/what-is-zero-knowledge-proof-zkp
(26) China banned bitcoin mining: https://forkast.news/china-banned-bitcoin-mining-became-no-2-bitcoin-miner/
(27) The defi matrix: https://x.com/balajis/status/1364626032771272706
(28) Google eats the newspaper industry: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2019-02-12/google-keeps-eating-the-newspaper-industry?srnd=premium
(29) Delaware’s status as corporate capital: https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-corporations-shareholders-delaware-nevada-texas-f110a0e560bf31628d523e310e0d88df
(30) Abundance: https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Progress-Takes-Ezra-Klein/dp/1668023482
(31) Ethereum’s strategic pivot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzSVcUeKRZ4
(32) AI on long tasks: https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks/
(33) The AI revolution is running out data: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03990-2
(34) Detecting adversarial inputs by looking in the black box: https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en116/special/detecting-adversarial-inputs-by-looking-in-the-black-box
(35) The rise of partisanship: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507
(36) China overtakes United States on contribution to research in Nature Index: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01705-7
(37) Scaling ETH: https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1882649073611935836
(38) AI for rapid prototyping: https://x.com/balajis/status/1903820935377109152
(39) AI taking the other AI's job: https://x.com/balajis/status/1907642490460717291


SOCIAL
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