Dialogue with Vitalik: The world should not fall into the power kingdom ruled by AI

Author: Zhang Xiaojun, Tencent News "Submarine"

Our world is being impacted by multiple new technological forces.

The first force is represented by OpenAI, which is evolving into the mainstream of global technological thought. The second force is Web3, cryptography, and blockchain. Over the past two years, these two forces have become increasingly disparate.

In November 2024, we met with Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who gazed across the divide of cryptography towards artificial intelligence. In his view, AI is intervening in human emotions, thoughts, and even the subconscious in a seemingly equal and innocuous manner, potentially constructing an unprecedented powerful central authority. A technological revolution will drive a "power game" that concerns the fate of all humanity.

Vitalik is the spiritual leader of Web3, and the Ethereum he founded ranks second in the industry, only behind Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto has never revealed himself, Vitalik has become the spokesperson for the field. His experiences have also added a legendary quality to his persona.

Born in 1994, Vitalik's parents divorced during his childhood, and he immigrated from Russia to Canada. He dropped out of university at 19 to establish Ethereum and became the youngest crypto billionaire in his twenties. In China, he is referred to as "V God." He just celebrated his 30th birthday this year.

Vitalik is always trying to articulate a philosophical view of technology. In his understanding, AI and Crypto represent two underlying philosophies. AI technology is more centralized and powerful, aiming to make human civilization and technology stronger; whereas Crypto, in contrast, advocates for a decentralized, egalitarian survivalist philosophy. Unlike AI, which occupies a place in a few global strongholds, Crypto's strongholds are dispersed worldwide, even more suited to marginal areas. In the words of Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, "Crypto is libertarian and AI is communist."

"Right now, when people use ChatGPT, it's like chatting with a friend. But in ten years, people will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. If your AI has no privacy, you have no privacy at all, including no privacy of thought," Vitalik said. "If it's centralized, it means a big company can read your thoughts—this is very dangerous."

Vitalik's living situation seems to align with the technological philosophy he advocates. Our meeting took place in a simple office space, and he arrived at 7:40 for an 8:00 appointment. He was alone, carrying a khaki canvas bag with a cat pattern under his arm, which contained a Dell laptop he bought for distributed AI. On his wrist was a plastic watch with a cat design. He always wears this outfit while moving between the discrete Web3 communities.

Vitalik speaks six languages, with English, Russian, and Chinese being his strongest. This conversation was conducted in Chinese.

He still appears somewhat youthful and nerdy, searching hard for the right Chinese characters to express complex technical vocabulary. A staff member poured him a cup of tea, and he repeatedly rubbed the small tag on the tea bag, folding it down, then picking it up again, unfolding it, and folding it once more…

If one day, the ultimate power of artificial intelligence, or "Big Brother," seeks to destroy humanity, will the Crypto kingdom you represent come to save humanity?

"This question is quite complex," Vitalik said.

Below is the full text of the conversation. (For readability, the author has made some text optimizations)

Photo taken by the author on site, showing Vitalik Buterin

"LLM is very powerful"

"Submarine": In your blog post commemorating your 30th birthday, "The end of my childhood," you said: "One thing that fascinates me about modern AI is that it allows us to engage with the hidden variables that guide human interaction in different ways in mathematics and philosophy: AI can make 'resonance' clear and readable." Can you talk about your thoughts on AI?

Vitalik:

Philosophers particularly like to use the latest technologies as analogies to describe what it means to be human. 100-200 years ago, we had industrial civilization and early robots that had no brains and represented the first step of automation. They said humans are machines. Recently, people have become interested in quantum technology, and many are asking whether the human brain is also quantum. I don't think so. How do humans think? Sometimes it's nonsense. But people tend to think this way: What do humans have in common with computers? What do humans have in common with factories? What do humans have in common with animals? This is how we understand humanity.

Now, the latest technology is the new generation of AI technology: LLM (Large Language Model). The concept of LLM is very complex, but it is very powerful—it can do many things, and we don't know how it does them—it is a black box.

The difference between LLM and ordinary programs is that with an ordinary program, if you randomly delete a line of code, the entire code may crash; it is particularly fragile. With LLM, if you make some small changes, it won't affect the basic functionality; if you only change a little, the output will only change a little.

So, LLM is particularly like humans and animals; it is biological life.

Anthropic is doing research to see what concepts each parameter represents in a relatively small LLM. They found that you can see in LLM— for example, this parameter represents red, this parameter represents the letter A, and that parameter represents capitalism. Even some particularly advanced concepts can be observed.

I shared two images where I asked ChatGPT to draw an extreme Bitcoin person and a similarly extreme Ethereum person. On the left, Bitcoin depicted an exaggerated wealthy person, while on the right, Ethereum showed a computer geek. Through AI, we can see the cultural differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through AI, we can think about many concepts of people and society, thus gaining a better understanding of ourselves.

"Submarine": In the past two years, artificial intelligence and large language models have replaced Web3, cryptography, and blockchain, becoming the mainstream of global technological thought. Standing on the side of the Crypto technological wave, watching the bustling AI revolution from afar, what are your thoughts?

Vitalik:

Blockchain and AI serve completely different purposes. In the short term, AI is a tool that everyone can use to improve efficiency. For example, when I write code or articles, especially when doing things I'm not good at, ChatGPT is most helpful to me. But in the long term, will AI become smarter than humans? It definitely will, but we don't know if it will be in 5 years or 50 years.

Blockchain solves trust issues. If you want to create applications, these applications need many people to participate, operate, and communicate with each other. They lack a trust center, and blockchain applications can solve this problem. Our world has many trust issues, which are more pronounced than they were ten years ago.

However, in the Crypto field, a problem in the last five years is that everyone's dreams and hopes are high, but the technology cannot fulfill most of those dreams. In 2020 and 2021, there was this issue: the transaction fees for Ethereum, Bitcoin, and all chains were very high, with a simple transaction costing $1 or $3. Most applications people wanted to create, aside from financial ones, were not feasible. But this year, with Ethereum's scaling projects, transaction fees on Layer 2 have dropped from $0.50 to sometimes $0.005. Many previously impossible applications are now becoming possible.

Such things have happened many times in the computer field: for a long time, everyone had an idea, but it required the technology of computers, CPU speeds, and internet bandwidth to reach a certain level before it finally became possible. This trend will also occur in Web3 over the next year, two years, or three years.

"Submarine": Will Super Apps appear in the Crypto field in the next three years?

Vitalik:

Sometimes I think about a longer-term question: Will the concept of an App change a lot in ten years?

Currently, an App is something you have on a computer or a phone, with an interface where you do things through buttons. But with artificial intelligence, our interaction with computers and the internet has changed a lot.

In the AI field, startups say, now that we have AI technology, we are creating AI applications. Some of these projects have succeeded. But most will find that people don't really need applications. What they want to do, they can just tell ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will give them an answer. So I'm wondering, will the future Super App be this? You can communicate directly with computers, phones, or any device in an AI way, and the AI will know what you want to do and help you do those things.

"Submarine": Will the technological revolution of artificial intelligence exacerbate centralization, making its development increasingly distant from the world you envision?

Vitalik:

This question is complex. Recently, I discovered an interesting point using AI: when I do things that many people have done before but that I'm not good at, ChatGPT is very useful to me; but when I do something particularly cutting-edge, like complex cryptography, AI is of no help at all.

On one hand, AI can yield some equal results, allowing some people to do things they are not good at.

On the other hand, ChatGPT is a very centralized application. When you use ChatGPT, you have to fully trust that it won't expose your various data. I think this issue will become particularly evident in 10 or 20 years.

Right now, when people use ChatGPT, it's like chatting with a friend. But in ten years, people will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. It's possible we will have something like BCI (brain-computer interface), leading to a deep connection between humans and machines. If your AI has no privacy, you have no privacy at all, including no privacy of thought. This is the first issue.

The second issue is that if it's a centralized company, it can shut down at any time, change the rules at any time, and alter the service conditions at any time. Whether you are an individual, a company, or a country, once you start relying on these, risks emerge.

So, AI has many advantages, but it also has these problems.

I know many people are starting to work on open-source AI and Decentralized AI. In fact, I use these things myself. I deliberately bought a computer—(Vitalik turns and pulls out a computer from his canvas bag to show)—this computer has a GPU, an Nvidia 4070, and I can run some LLM on my own computer.

When I don't need the highest quality from ChatGPT, I can do it on my own computer. I find this has an advantage: when I don't have internet access, it's not a problem. Decentralized AI is very important.

"OpenAI sacrificed open-source for safety in the first step, and sacrificed safety for profit in the second step"

"Submarine": I'm curious, what do you think of OpenAI? Could it become the largest, or even the ultimate monopolist?

Vitalik:

The story of OpenAI is very interesting. On one hand, it has created a very useful tool for everyone.

I can't say for everyone. Because ChatGPT has two levels: the first level is free; the second level costs $20 a month, available in some countries but not in others. This tool is particularly useful, especially when I enter fields I'm not good at.

But OpenAI has a problem. At the beginning, Elon Musk saw many large Silicon Valley companies working on AI, and he worried that if AI was developed by them, it would become particularly centralized. There are many risks, so he started OpenAI. But five years later, due to AI safety concerns, although they didn't say they wouldn't open-source, they changed the definition—open means their services are open.

"Submarine": It became CloseAI.

Vitalik:

Yes, they became CloseAI. Today, another problem has emerged: first, they sacrificed their open-source for safety; then this year, they sacrificed their safety for profit.

Last year, there was a conflict between the company and the board, and after the conflict, it seemed that Sam Altman won. Recently, they announced they would transition from a non-profit to a for-profit company, reducing the power of the board—one could say reducing it to the level of advisors. This makes me quite concerned.

"Submarine": A few days ago, I interviewed Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese AI scientist, investor, and entrepreneur. He made several statements, and I want to hear if you agree with them.

He said: "The first to create AGI and crush its opponents will inevitably be a globally monopolistic commercial entity, and it has the ambition to become an ultimate monopolist." "OpenAI is a particularly powerful monopolistic company, and Sam Altman may become the biggest monopolist in history. Although he does not monopolize today, his ambition and strategy are very clear. I admire him for that. But from a practitioner's perspective, I am also very worried."

Vitalik: That's exactly it.

"Submarine": So, what do you think of Sam Altman as a person?

Vitalik:

I've only met him once, so it's difficult for me to judge him deeply. The only thing I can observe is what he does. Many of the things he has done at OpenAI, I disagree with.

He is working on the Worldcoin project, which I think has a good idea. I don't believe Worldcoin should be the only way to establish a global digital identity, but it addresses a real problem that needs to be solved. I have communicated quite a bit with the Worldcoin team, and they are concerned about all the issues I would care about.

But there is still the problem that creating "the next global currency" is very difficult. If you want to do this, many people will oppose it. Creating such a thing requires two conditions—this is very interesting—first, the world needs to trust you; second, people need to know there is a mechanism that allows them not to trust you. They have made many improvements in the past year and hope to continue developing in a positive direction.

"Submarine": You just said that on one hand, people need to trust this person, and on the other hand, they need to know they don't need to trust this person. Does Sam meet this condition?

Vitalik: I don't think the current OpenAI meets this.

"Submarine": Will the departure of key people like Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI's chief scientist) from OpenAI have an impact on the AI landscape?

Vitalik:

This is a red flag; it's something to be concerned about.

The departure of many people doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem with the company. In the early days of Ethereum, many co-founders left. If someone leaves or is fired, it usually means there are some conflicts or differing values behind it. We need to look at the specific details.

Looking at the details of OpenAI, I believe this company, in the first step, sacrificed open-source for safety, and in the second step, sacrificed safety for profit. This reminds me of a saying by one of America's founding fathers: "You cannot sacrifice freedom for safety; if you do, you will find you have neither safety nor freedom." The behavior of OpenAI seems to reflect this.

"Submarine": Who should humanity trust more, Sam Altman or you?

Vitalik: I don't want to answer that. (laughs)

"The merger of biology and silicon is the only super intelligence humans can participate in"

"Submarine": How do you interpret Peter Thiel's statement: "Crypto is libertarian, and AI is communist"?

Vitalik:

I think what he means is that AI is centralized, while Crypto is decentralized. Where does the power of AI come from? First, from computational power; second, from data.

If you have more computational power, your AI will be stronger; if you have more data, your AI will also be stronger. AI is a particularly powerful thing. The best AI is the largest AI. If you want to create an AI, the simplest way is to put computational power and data in one place.

We can see that AI companies are almost all located in three or four places in the world: Silicon Valley, London, and a few cities in China; but the Crypto community and projects are particularly dispersed. The Ethereum Foundation has only 25% of its people in the U.S.; where are the others? Everywhere. There are many in Germany, many in the UK, many in Singapore, and a few developers in China. Every country has some, and why is that? Because what Crypto does is different.

Where is Crypto most useful? In some marginal areas where there is no centralized trust center.

"Submarine": In places without centralized power? This means it is not the main character in the world.

Vitalik:

The goal of Crypto is to create applications where everyone can see the rules and contracts of the applications. Not everyone needs to read them themselves, but at least many can audit the code, and everyone can participate. Blockchain is a global thing. Therefore, AI and Crypto have characteristics that truly move in different directions.

"Submarine": The underlying values are different.

Vitalik:

Yes. Moreover, the reasons people participate in these fields are also different. The common reason is money. The difference is what people want to do with these fields.

People involved in AI are particularly concerned about the development of human technology, hoping to accelerate humanity's transition to a multi-planetary civilization, making humanity more powerful and themselves more powerful. People involved in blockchain care about decentralized trust issues, social equity issues, and so on.

"Submarine": Will AI and Crypto diverge into two branches, or will they intersect? If they converge or move towards more extreme branches, what will we see on that day?

Vitalik:

The role of Crypto is to create a game, and the game you create may have many goals. Trading can be considered one game. Another example is prediction markets; this year, Polymarket (a prediction market project) has been quite successful.

Crypto can create a game that safely executes game rules through smart contracts, and AI can participate in this game. If only humans participate, sometimes the efficiency is not high enough. For example, in prediction markets, I have been playing a lot on Polymarket this year. I found that the quality of their results has improved significantly compared to four years ago. Why? One reason is that there is more liquidity. Last year, it might have been $1 million or $10 million; this year, it could be $100 million or $200 million. But I also found that this year, for matters with less liquidity, the answers are still quite good.

So, it's very likely that AI is participating now. The reaction speed of AI is very fast. A person doing this needs to be on the computer 24 hours a day, watching all the news every minute and second. But an LLM, you let it run, and it can do it by itself.

I believe there will be more examples in the future, possibly in the social field or other areas. Crypto is a secure foundation, and through Crypto, a game can be created that ensures the rules of the game are fair. The role of AI is to participate.

"Submarine": So it's not Crypto participating in the AI game, but AI participating in the Crypto game?

Vitalik: Yes.

"Submarine": One day, if the ultimate power of artificial intelligence, or "Big Brother," seeks to destroy humanity, will the Crypto kingdom you represent come to save humanity?

Vitalik:

This question is quite complex. The role of Crypto is to establish the rules of the game, not to solve specific problems.

Humans have many things they want to do—hoping to live longer, have a more comfortable life, or go to Mars. To achieve these, we need to solve coordination problems between people. If you are on an island with only yourself and no one else, Crypto is completely useless. The only role of Crypto is to solve problems between people. But if there is only one person on the island, AI is useful. Through this example, you can see that Crypto cannot directly solve your problems but can indirectly solve them. Crypto is creating a game, but it still requires people, robots, or other things to participate in these games.

If you want to see how Crypto can save the world? It cannot be just Crypto; it must be Crypto + something else. So, Crypto + what?

● The first possibility is Crypto + Decentralized AI;

● The second possibility is Crypto + a technology that can replace AI.

What technology can replace AI? The only answer is a deeper interaction between humans and computers. In the past two years, VR, AR, and the metaverse have become quite popular, like Meta glasses. What are the characteristics of these technologies? They enhance communication between the human brain and machines, increasing flow and efficiency.

When you wear Meta glasses, they can directly see where you are looking. Now, computers can receive some of your consciousness; if done through glasses, they can see your eyes and body, and they will communicate directly with your subconscious.

An interesting point is that the communication flow between the left and right parts of a person's brain is not particularly high. If we can create a particularly efficient communication method with high flow and fast timing between humans and machines, computers will truly become a part of you.

Why am I interested in this direction? Because something smarter than humans will definitely exist, whether in 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years. But will this thing that is smarter than humans be an independent entity that surpasses us, or can we become a part of this thing?—I find the second option particularly interesting.

"Submarine": We become a part of it?

Vitalik:

Yes, or it becomes a part of us, which is a merger— the technology of biology and silicon will merge together—this technology is the only super intelligence that we humans can participate in.

If we don't do this, the only possibility is that a single computer will be smarter than all of us, and they will control the world, leaving humans with no power to influence it.

If this direction is to be pursued, it must be done in the right way. There is already Neuralink (the brain-computer interface company founded by Musk), but this technology has a risk: a computer can read your thoughts and brain. If it is not open-source, if it is centralized, it sends your information to a server. This means a big company can read your thoughts, and that is very dangerous. So I hope that in both software and hardware, we have open-source and respect for safety.

How does Crypto participate? The first is the business model. Open-source technology always has a drawback: it's hard to find funding. If you create something centralized and controlled by yourself, there are many ways to make a lot of money. But with open-source technology, everyone can download and use it, and once they use it, they don't need to have any relationship with you. Its technology has advantages, but the downside is that it's hard to make money. Crypto has many ways to respect open-source and make money.

If we support some open-source technologies through Crypto, it may lead to more open-source BCI, more open-source AI, and more open-source everything.

"Submarine": It sounds like AI architecture on Crypto?

Vitalik:

The business model can be built on Crypto, or some Crypto technologies can be used to create another architecture.

One point I haven't mentioned yet is that there are some interesting new Crypto technologies recently, including PC (Programmable Cryptography) and FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption). The advantage is that you can create an AI that can compute with your private data without anyone else or any other computer knowing your private data. It uses your data for computation but doesn't see what the data is. These technologies have been known to be possible since 1982, but they have now reached a stage where they can be applied more widely.

"Submarine": In the field of artificial intelligence, who do you admire the most, and who do you dislike the most?

Vitalik:

Wow, this… there isn't a clear example. I respect those who maintain their principles over a long time. In the past five years, there have been many external changes, and many people change their thoughts. It's not necessarily for their own reasons; most of the time, it's for bad reasons— for example, if I don't like a team's idea, I need to have an idea to counter them.

There are not many people willing to keep an open mind and have principles for a long time. If they do, I will respect them.

"If issuing a coin or creating an exchange is all we do, then this industry has failed"

"Submarine": Given the recent popularity of artificial intelligence and its appeal to young talent, what advice would you give to technical experts who have aspirations but are hesitant between career choices in blockchain and artificial intelligence?

Vitalik: The most important thing is still what you are interested in.

"Submarine": Objectively speaking, will the prosperity of artificial intelligence in the past two years cool down Crypto?

Vitalik:

It will definitely have an effect. Some people who previously participated in Crypto have gone to AI because of its development.

I find there are three types of people:

● The first type is those whose goal is to do something significant, regardless of what it is; they just want to do something big, impactful, and be part of human history. Or to earn more money.

● The second type is for specific reasons related to Crypto, such as caring about currency, open-source issues, or trust and human freedom issues. They have always been on the blockchain side and will not go to AI.

● The third type is those who want to make money, but the quality of their work may be lower.

I have a concern: if particularly wise people do not engage in Crypto, the people remaining in the Crypto field may not have any interesting ideas, and the only applications will be financial applications that everyone has been doing for many years. This would lead to a situation—issuing a coin, creating an exchange; then issuing another coin, creating another exchange; then issuing another coin with a cute dog on it—these things are fun, but if they are the only things our industry does, then this industry has failed.

The challenge our industry faces is to create applications that are both meaningful and that many people enjoy participating in.

I have recently found that many people want to do this. The years 2022 and 2023 were very dangerous periods; AI succeeded, but Crypto had not yet succeeded. Everyone knows that AI's LLM is particularly powerful and what can be done with ChatGPT. But Layer 2 has not yet emerged or is in a very early stage, with high transaction fees. So, the distinction between what AI and Crypto can do was greatest in 2022 and 2023.

However, this year, the power of Crypto has increased significantly, and many developers are starting to want to create applications that are both meaningful and that many users enjoy participating in. If the Crypto field continues to succeed, many people will still choose to participate in Crypto.

"Submarine": I told people in the Chinese venture capital industry around me that I would be meeting you today, and many asked me to ask you the same question: Why do you think the Ethereum ecosystem or the entire Web3 ecosystem still lacks practical applications after so many years?

Vitalik:

My answer is what I just said. Before this year, transaction fees were too high, some important technologies had not matured, account security issues had not been resolved, and privacy issues had not been resolved; many problems remained unsolved. So, before this year, our industry did not have enough technology to create applications that ordinary people could participate in. The only successful application was DeFi, partly because DeFi could earn more money.

If there is an opportunity to increase your money tenfold, even if there are technical difficulties, you would be willing to participate. If there is a 30% chance that your account will be stolen, and if you encounter a problem, your money will be gone, but if you win, your money will increase tenfold, you are likely to participate.

But if what you want to do is more ordinary, with the goal not being to increase your money tenfold but to protect your money, protect your identity, or participate in some other applications, if the technical difficulties and security issues are not resolved, you will not participate.

This year, we have finally started to solve these problems. This year is the best time to create meaningful applications.

"Submarine": Constantly trading coins and hoarding coins is not what you want?

Vitalik: No.

"Submarine": What do you want? What do you want to push this world towards?

Vitalik:

I hope the world becomes fairer and more open, creating applications that can solve important trust issues. If you want to build a fair and open world, solving trust issues is the necessary first step. Why are many things not going well? Because everyone doesn't know who to trust.

You can look at the application cases of Crypto. In countries facing many financial problems, like Argentina, they are particularly interested in Crypto.

● First, it is a reliable financial system where they can put their money, and their money won't just disappear one day.

● Second, they can connect with mainstream finance. Many people use Crypto to work for companies in the U.S. or Europe, earning U.S. or European-level salaries and sending money back to their countries to support themselves or their families, participating in fairer global matters.

● Third, there are other applications. For example, people like to talk about identity or credit systems, but they all want to solve a problem, which is the trust issue, wanting to know who they can trust. There is now a topic: knowing who is a person and who is a robot.

If we solve this in a decentralized way, we can more easily create global, secure applications that everyone can use. This can help avoid a risk: the division of the world.

"Submarine": It sounds like Crypto is more suitable for places lacking trust and fairness; AI is more suitable for places seeking greater human power—these are two completely different human ideals. Could it be that Crypto ignites countries like Argentina, while AI ignites countries like China and the U.S., leading to different global landscapes?

Vitalik:

In the long term, we all need to enhance our capabilities. If we have a perfect, fair, and decentralized system, but the capabilities of the people doing things do not improve, after a while, we will still fall behind.

Technologies outside of Crypto, including AI and biological sciences, need participation from all over the world. But there are different ways to develop these technologies. If we want to use a decentralized and more open approach, Crypto may participate in part of it. In the short term, the adoption of Crypto will vary greatly between different countries.

For example, in Argentina, there are fundamental financial issues. In the U.S., most of the time, there are no such problems. The most useful aspect of Crypto for me is donating to some international charities. It's very difficult through bank machines, but it's easy through Crypto. In developed countries, the most frequent users of this technology are those who particularly want to participate in international markets and societies. In smaller countries, the adoption of Appchains is more prevalent.

I don't know how these things will change in the long term.

"Submarine": I have a very basic misunderstanding. For ordinary people, what is the difference between a centralized application and a decentralized application?

Vitalik:

I can give you a specific example. Recently, we have some decentralized SocialFi applications that have succeeded on Ethereum, with Lens and Farcaster being two of the easiest to understand examples. What is the difference between Farcaster and Twitter?

On Twitter, first, its algorithm is completely opaque; second, if you think Twitter is bad and dislike what it is doing, and want to move to another application, your network disappears. Anyone dissatisfied with Twitter who wants to start a new one has to start from scratch, making the network effect particularly difficult to solve.

In Farcaster, the architecture is such that—first layer is a decentralized network, and the second layer is the interface where users can send messages and see messages from others. The most used client is called Warpcast, which is a decentralized app that you can download yourself and is very user-friendly. A user who has never participated in Crypto can use Warpcast. But if you don't like Warpcast and dislike what they are doing, Farcaster also has many other clients, like Firefly. If you don't like Warpcast, you can move to Firefly, and you can participate in the Farcaster network through Firefly. The messages you send on Warpcast can be seen, and the messages sent by Warpcast users can also be seen.

The decentralized underlying structure ensures that different clients can interoperate, which can prevent Warpcast from becoming a monopoly.

This is an open machine where anyone can create a client. In the Farcaster ecosystem, the open architecture has already provided some important advantages to users.

"Submarine": What do you think of the speculators in the Crypto industry? Why are there so many such people in this industry?

Vitalik:

Speculators exist in many fields, such as the stock market and sports betting. Many people have this habit.

What should our industry do? First, if some people like to engage in more gamified finance, I hope to create alignments where their participation in these things is beneficial to their country and society.

Second, we need to have some ways for them to expand their wealth in the long term. In most societies globally, people previously invested in real estate, but the real estate market is very unfair to many. People don't know if they are making money or losing money. If we can create some financial products in the Crypto field that can earn money in the long term while connecting with the real economy, that would be great.

Why hasn't this succeeded before? First, regulations were not clear enough, but recently, many countries have become clearer in their regulations. Second, the technology needs to be secure enough.

If you can increase your assets tenfold, you would be willing to face various risks. But the real economy doesn't work that way; it might be below 3%, 8%, or 10%. If your returns are reasonable, you need to care about security issues. Now we have solved a bit of this. I hope to provide people with better financial choices.

"I have no nanny, driver, or bodyguard"

"Submarine": You became a billionaire at a very young age; what is your current living situation like?

Vitalik:

It hasn't changed much from five years ago. I travel to different countries and participate in various events.

The main change is that more people want to take pictures with me.

"Submarine": Do you have a nanny, driver, or bodyguard?

Vitalik: None. Maybe at some big events, there will be, but most of the time, there aren't any.

"Submarine": I see on social media, including Chinese social media, that you are often photographed taking the subway in Singapore. Why do you always take the subway?

Vitalik: Because the subway in Singapore is really good.

"Submarine": What about in other countries?

Vitalik: Other countries are different; some don't have subways or have inconvenient ones, so I take a taxi. If I can walk, I will choose to walk; I enjoy walking.

"Submarine": Why do your bag and watch both have cats on them?

Vitalik: Because cats are cute.

Photo taken by the author on site, showing Vitalik displaying his watch

"Submarine": Did you buy them in Thailand?

Vitalik: No. The watch was a gift from a friend, and the compass was something I found on Amazon. The cat bag was a gift from my friend in Thailand.

"Submarine": You mentioned in an interview that you often hear stories about some wealthy people who spend their money on private jets, helicopters, luxury sports cars, or other foolish things, and in the end, they have nothing left. I remember thinking this was very foolish. So when you became wealthy, did you ever entertain any foolish thoughts? Did you succumb to them or resist them?

Vitalik: Emm, I don't know how to answer that.

"Submarine": In other words, did wealth ever lead you astray?

Vitalik: I don't think that way.

"Submarine": Do you check the amount in your bank account often?

Vitalik: Not really.

"Submarine": I'm surprised you can speak Chinese (without having lived in China). How did you learn and master this language?

Vitalik:

I started learning in 2013, right after I dropped out of university and began writing articles for Bitcoin Magazine. I decided to travel and see the Bitcoin world in China, the U.S., and Europe. At that time, I saw some articles about China discussing the Bitcoin community and projects, which were particularly interesting.

Many people told me that Chinese is the hardest language to learn. This was a particularly interesting challenge, so I started learning. Initially, I used language software, and in 2014, I came to China for the first time and began chatting with many Chinese friends. I continued learning like this.

"Submarine": You speak many languages, around six? Does knowing multiple languages help in doing Crypto?

Vitalik:

My best languages are English, Russian, and Chinese. After that, I learned French in school in Canada from 2014 to 2019. I taught myself a bit of German and Spanish. So about six languages; I only know a little of the others.

It actually helps. An interesting point is that European languages are relatively easy to learn as they are close to English, coming from Latin. Europeans tend to speak English, and sometimes in technical discussions, they can express themselves better in English. But for those not in Europe, it's not the same. Speaking Russian, Chinese, or a bit of Spanish in South America is particularly helpful.

"Submarine": What are the three most important things you are thinking about right now?

Vitalik:

First, the development of the Ethereum ecosystem; what we need to do now to make the Ethereum ecosystem, applications, and community develop better.

Second, some macro human issues we discussed, including AI.

Third, many smaller technical matters, like what I need to do today, what my next article will be about, and many small issues.

"Submarine": What do you think of the U.S. election and the two candidates? The results will be out soon. (Our conversation took place the day before the U.S. election results were announced)

Vitalik:

Who will win today may not have a significant impact 20 or 30 years from now. Some trends will happen regardless of what happens today. Even if it doesn't happen today, it may happen in 2028. If it doesn't happen in the U.S., it may happen in other countries. So, we mainly look at some long-term trends and global trends. In the next ten years, the world's culture, technology, race, and economy will change significantly.

"Submarine": As a cosmopolitan or a builder of some utopian community, you always try to break the old order and establish a new one. So how do you view the institution of marriage? Do humans still need marriage?

Vitalik:

This topic may change a lot in 50 years. Previously, people's goals were primarily economic security and children. But now, at least in developed countries, there are no urgent economic issues, allowing people to think more about life and what they like. Moreover, many people do not want or are unwilling to have children.

The internet has changed our social relationships significantly. Moving from one city to another 30 years ago meant losing all your friends; that's not the case anymore. If the situation changes, our lives will also change a lot.

"Submarine": Are you free now?

Vitalik: Sometimes I am free, sometimes I am not.

"Submarine": Not free from what?

Vitalik: There are so many people in the Ethereum community. I always think about what they are thinking and what they want to do.

"Submarine": Do you have fears?

Vitalik: I have a fear of bugs.

------------------End------------------

(After the conversation, Vitalik left the label from the tea bag on the table.)

Photo taken by the author on site