Ethereum

The end of my childhood:

https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/01/31/end.html

Interesting to see the different response this post got on Twitter vs Farcaster.

Twitter: Omg Vitalik is retiring and thinks only young people can contribute to ETHs future.

Farcaster: Happy birthday, and $DEGEN token spam.

Neither great tbh 😅

Fwiw, my take is, that when you want to build a global product, let alone a global stack, you need diverse experiences. 

One way @vitalik.eth has got that over the years is travelling to hacker houses and experiencing other cultures.

That’s not something someone like me with a family is going to do as much.

As V enters a new phase of life, and as Ethereum enters a new phase of growth, it’s important for this stack to be a reflection of the needs of all its users, young and old, and for people to never get fixated on being a figurehead (something V has obviously been unable to avoid)

But us old folks have a role too.

It was a decade ago now that I first met with Canadian Senators to explain Bitcoin to them and discuss regulation.

And I spend a lot of my free time continuing to education regulators and politicians to this day.

I hope I can for decades to come.

But me being an affluent, first world, decade long Ethereum user, may mean I have the means and experience to do that; but it also means my product vision is likely bias, by my experiences, and not those of the global userbase we hope Ethereum will appeal to.

I doubt Vitalik is going anywhere.

He’s got that same itch to scratch that many of us do, of wanting to genuinely solve problems - and that’s hard to shake.

But, he’s suggesting we don’t make the mistake of defining what Ethereum *is* solely by its first generation of users.

Ethereum is a global ecosystem, with ambitious goals, but it’s identity is ephemeral.

Like the philosophical “long body” view of identity where humans are a cycle of identities that rise and fall.

In one part of life you define yourself as an athlete, at another time a dad.

Both are you, but also neither are.

Ethereum takes upon itself these cycles of identity as well.

A world computer, financial smart contracts, ownership of assets, ownership of identity.

What Ethereum as a collective, is and has been, has continued to evolve year over year, and shape the pursuits of the builders within it.

But the pragmatists and the idealists are both driven by the narratives and ideas that become the collective culture, the current zeitgeist of “Ethereum”

And that construct must come, from passionate and diverse places.

Because the stark reality is, no matter how much Vitalik steps back, we still do look to him for guiding ideas and principles of Ethereum.

But, there will come a day where that cannot be his role; as the hope is the good we do with Ethereum outlived us all.

And so, an ecosystem, must ensure to represent the diverse voices, bring in new fresh blood, new energized young hopefuls that shed of the callous biases we’ve developed in years of uphill battles, and continue to push the boundaries of both what Ethereum can do, but also what it is.

And us old, mortgage beholden, children managing, ache and pain riddles, senior citizens, will just have to do our best to add a drop of wisdom in here or there too! 😜

This is a call, to all those young builders who do travel, spend time in hacker houses, and on the ground places, to also come to the table, and add new ideas to what Ethereum can be.

As replacement to those of us who are aging out of that category, and because we’ve got years of product bias.