Vitalik's latest AMA: loves listening to Angela Chang; wants to play table tennis; worries about climate change.

Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily

Translator: Azuma

On October 18, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin held an open AMA on the social media platform Warpcast based on Farcaster.

During the several hours of interaction, the community asked Vitalik many interesting questions regarding the development of Ethereum and Crypto, his views on the real world, personal hobbies and experiences, and more. Vitalik carefully selected and answered some of these questions.

Below are some meaningful (or significant) Q&A content selected by Odaily Planet Daily.

Question 1: About Personal Motivation

Q: Where does your motivation come from?

Vitalik: My motivation comes from knowing that the Ethereum community and what we are building have a very unique significance in this increasingly complex world, and we can do something truly valuable. In this process, positive outcomes do not happen naturally, so we have a responsibility to think deeply and turn them into reality.

Question 2: About Quantum Threats

Q: I want to know your views on quantum computers and their solutions, as I believe they will be realized sooner than people expect.

Vitalik: Account abstraction (ERC-4337) provides us with a clear idea of how to give user accounts quantum-resistant properties. For existing accounts, if the era of quantum computers suddenly arrives, we may have to do a hard fork, and you will be able to prove your 12-word mnemonic through ZK-STARK to recover your EOA address.

For the consensus layer, alternatives based on STARK such as "BLS aggregation," "Verkle tree," and "KZG-based DAS" are actively being explored.

Question 3: About Bitcoin

Q: Do you think Bitcoin still has value after Ethereum exists?

Vitalik: The article "Ethereum Alignment" by Starknet developer abdel.stark explains this issue well. Bitcoin has made a series of different technical trade-offs, thus covering a completely different hypothesis space compared to Ethereum.

Question 4: About Layer 2 Design Limitations

Q: Scroll recently launched its zkEVM mainnet. However, since Layer 2 needs to closely mimic the classic EVM on Ethereum, we are unlikely to see innovative design concepts and experiments, such as privacy features, on the execution layer.

Vitalik: I don't think the execution layer needs privacy; this can be built at the top layer.

Question 5: About Upper Layer Applications

Q: In your opinion, why haven't cryptocurrency-based prediction markets received much attention? Do you still believe they have potential? What do they need to do to "take off"?

Vitalik: They are slowly getting closer to their goals. Polymarket has made significant progress recently, and it seems to blend Crypto attributes with business development better than any previous attempts.

Question 6: About Traditional Finance and Capitalism

Q: In your opinion, what are the biggest threats facing traditional finance and late-stage capitalism?

Vitalik: Traditional militaries, late-stage authoritarianism.

Question 7: About Climate Change

Q: What are your views on climate change?

Odaily Planet Daily Note: The potential impact of climate change on GDP in different economies

Vitalik: Anything that could have such an impact on the world is worth worrying about. Just the halving of GDP is already terrifying for the poorest countries in the world, not to mention the direct impact on humanity. However, thoughts like "this will make the world so bad that I shouldn't have ecological children" are also wrong and harmful.

I invested in a solar battery company and am open to more things. We need to consciously invest resources while advancing along many technological paths to properly address this issue.

Question 8: About "Expensive" Purchases

Q: Do you still have that T-shirt you bought for 8.5 BTC?

Vitalik: No, I don't. Unfortunately, I lost it years ago when I forgot my bag on a train in the UK.

Question 9: About Music You Enjoy

Q: What music have you been listening to these days?

Vitalik: Some high-energy Mandarin songs are great to listen to during the 15-20 kilometers of a long run and can significantly increase running speed. For example, Angela Zhang's "Aurora" and "Breaking the Cocoon" can almost boost my speed by 10%.

Recently, I've also been listening to some Japanese songs.

Question 10: About Favorite Cities

Q: Which city (or place) do you enjoy walking in the most? Has your preference changed since becoming a public figure?

Vitalik: Recently, I have indeed become less of a "city dweller." Even when I am in Singapore, I tend to live farther from the city center, like near the reservoir park.

In terms of cities, I particularly like Singapore, Taipei, Vienna, Toronto, and Ithaca, New York.

Question 11: About Sports

Q: Want to play some tennis together?

Vitalik: Are you talking about "athletic table tennis"? Haha, I'm just joking that this sport is always mistakenly called table tennis. I haven't played either sport in a long time and would love to play at some point.

Question 12: About Diet

Q: What did you eat this morning?

Vitalik: About 16 grams of Lindt 85% dark chocolate; my favorite 90% dark chocolate is finished. Usually, I only eat two meals a day, brunch and dinner, with about a 6-hour gap.

Summary

In addition to the above questions, community users also raised other quite valuable questions, such as the one asked by former Scalar Capital partner Linda Xie, "What ideas do you wish people would try to rebuild that were not realized in the early stages of Ethereum?" However, perhaps due to being busy with other matters, Vitalik has not answered any further questions in the last 8 hours.

Given that Farcaster lifted registration restrictions earlier this month, interested iOS users (Android is not yet supported) can try to register and experience Warpcast, and perhaps even receive a reply from Vitalik himself.