Source: Tencent News

Our world is being impacted by multiple new technological forces.

The first wave is the power of artificial intelligence represented by OpenAI, which is evolving into the mainstream of technological thought that dominates the world. The second stock is Web3, encryption technology and blockchain. Over the past two years, these two forces have become increasingly unequal.

In November 2024, we met Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, standing on the other side of encryption technology (Crypto) and looking at artificial intelligence from a distance. In his eyes, artificial intelligence is intervening in human emotions, thoughts and even subconsciousness in a seemingly equal, intimate and harmless manner, and through this, it may build an unprecedentedly powerful power center. A technological revolution will promote the "power game" concerning the fate of all mankind.

Buterin is the spiritual leader of Web3. The Ethereum he founded ranks second in the industry, second only to Bitcoin. Since Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, has never shown up, Buterin has become the face of the field. His experiences also add to his legendary character.

Buterin was born in 1994. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he immigrated to Canada from Russia. He dropped out of college to found Ethereum at the age of 19, and became the youngest crypto billionaire in his 20s. In , people call him "V God". He just celebrated his 30th birthday this year.

Buterin is always trying to elaborate a philosophical view of technology. In his opinion, AI and Crypto represent two underlying philosophies. AI technology is more centralized and powerful, and it intends to make human civilization and technology more powerful; on the contrary, Crypto advocates a decentralized and equal survivalist philosophy. Unlike AI that occupies a place in a few fortresses around the world, Crypto’s strongholds are scattered around the world and are even more suitable for edge areas. In the words of Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel: "Encryption technology is liberalism, artificial intelligence is ism." (CryptoislibertarianandAIiscommunist.")

"Now everyone uses ChatGPT, just like chatting with a friend. But in 10 years, everyone will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. If your artificial intelligence has no privacy, you as a person have no privacy at all, including privacy without thoughts. "Buterin said, "If it is centralized, it means that a big company can read your thoughts - which is very dangerous. ”

Buterin’s living conditions seem to be consistent with the technical ideas he advocates. Our meeting was held in a simple office space. The agreed time was 8 o’clock in the morning, and he came at 7:40. He Alone, carrying a bag with a cat pattern under his arm In the khaki canvas bag is a Dell computer that he bought for distributed artificial intelligence. On his wrist is a plastic watch with a cat pattern, which he always wears when traveling among the discrete Web3 communities. p>

Butlin can speak 6 languages ​​and speaks the mostThe good ones are in English, Russian and Chinese. This conversation will be held in Chinese.

He still looks a little green and nerdy, trying very hard to search for suitable Chinese characters in his mind to express difficult technical vocabulary. The staff poured him a cup of tea, and he repeatedly rubbed the small label on the tea bag with his hands, folded it and put it down, picked it up again, unfolded it, folded it again...

If one day, artificial intelligence The ultimate power or "Big Brother" wants to destroy mankind. Will the Crypto Kingdom you represent come to save mankind?

“This issue is quite complex.” Buterin said.

The following is the full text of the conversation. (For the convenience of reading, the author has done some text optimization)

The author took photos on site , the picture shows Vitalik Buterin

1. "LLM is very powerful"

"Perspective": You are writing the blog post "The end of my "One of the things that fascinates me about modern AI is that it allows us to mathematically and philosophically engage in different ways with the hidden variables that guide human interactions: AI can make 'resonance' Clear and easy to read. "Can you tell me about the AI ​​in your mind?

Buterin: Philosophers especially like to use analogies with the latest technology to describe: what is a human being. 100-200 years ago, we had industrial civilization and early robots. They had no brains and possessed the first step of automation. They say that man is a machine. Recently, everyone is interested in quantum technology. Many people ask, is the human brain also quantum? I don't think so. What do people think? Sometimes it's bullshit. But people think about it this way: What do humans and computers have in common? What do people and factories have in common? What are the similarities between humans and animals? This is how we understand humans.

Now, the latest technology is a new generation of artificial intelligence technology: LLM (Large Language Model, large language model). When we look at the concept of LLM, it is very complex, but it is very powerful - it can do many things, and we don't know how to do it - it is a black box.

The difference between LLM and ordinary programs is: in ordinary programs, if you randomly delete a line of code, the entire code may collapse, which is particularly fragile; in LLM, if you make some small changes, it will not It will affect the basic functions. If you only change a little bit, the output will only change a little bit.

So, LLM is particularly like humans and animals, it is biological life (life at the biological level).

Anthropic is doing research. The research goal is to see what each parameter represents in a relatively small LLM.concept? They found that in LLM you can see - for example, this parameter represents the color red, this parameter represents the letter A, and that parameter represents capitalism. Including some particularly advanced concepts, you can see them all.

I posted two pictures. I told ChatGPT: Draw a person who is extreme about Bitcoin, and draw a person who is also extremely extreme about Ethereum. There are exaggerated tycoons in Bitcoin on the left, and geeks playing computer games in Ethereum on the right. It can be seen through AI that there are cultural differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through AI, we can think about many concepts of people and society and learn more about ourselves.

"Perspective": In the past two years, artificial intelligence and large language models have replaced Web3, encryption technology and blockchain, becoming The mainstream of global technology trends. Standing on the other side of the Crypto technology wave and watching the crowded artificial intelligence revolution on this side, what are you thinking about?

Buterin: Blockchain and artificial intelligence have completely different functions. Artificial intelligence is a short-term tool that everyone can use to improve efficiency. For example, when I write code or articles, especially things I am not good at, ChatGPT is most helpful to me. But in the long run, will artificial intelligence be smarter than humans? Definitely, I just don’t know if it will be in 5 years or 50 years.

Blockchain solves the trust problem. You want to make applications that require many people to participate, operate and communicate with each other. They don’t have a trust center, and blockchain applications can solve this problem. There are a lot of trust issues in our world that are more prominent than they were 10 years ago.

But in the Crypto field, there has been a problem in the past five years: everyone has high dreams and hopes, but technology cannot achieve most of the dreams. There is this problem in 2020 and 2021: the transaction fees of Ethereum, Bitcoin and all chains are very high. To send a very simple transaction, you have to pay a transaction fee of US$1 or US$3. Most of the applications I want to use, except finance, are not possible. But this year, with the Ethereum expansion project, transaction fees on Layer 2 have been reduced from US$0.5 to sometimes US$0.005. Many applications that were impossible before are now possible.

This has happened many times in the computer field: everyone has had an idea for a long time, but it takes computer technology, CPU speed, and Internet traffic to upgrade to a certain level before these things are finally possible. . In the next one, two, and three years, this trend will also happen in Web3.

"Perspective": In the Crypto field, will Super App appear in the next three years?

Butlin: Sometimes I think about a longer-term question: Will the concept of App change a lot in 10 years?

Now with App, you have a computer or a mobile phone. The mobile phone has an interface, and you do something through buttons on the interface.thing. But thanks to artificial intelligence, the way we interact with computers and the Internet has changed a lot.

In the field of artificial intelligence, startups say that now that AI technology is available, we can make AI applications. Some (projects) have been successful. But most people will find: In fact, we don’t need any applications. What they want to do can be told directly to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will give them an answer. So I’m thinking, will this be the Super App in the future? You can use AI to communicate directly with computers, mobile phones or any device. AI will know what you want to do and it will do it for you.

"Perspective": The artificial intelligence technology revolution will intensify centralization, so is its development getting further and further away from the world you envisioned?

Butlin: This issue is complex. I recently discovered an interesting point using AI: I do something that many people have done before but I am not good at. ChatGPT is very useful to me; but when I do something that is particularly cutting-edge, such as complex cryptography, it may only be me and others. 1,000 people have done it, and AI has not helped me at all.

On the one hand, AI can get some equal results and let some people do things they are not good at.

On the other hand, ChatGPT is a very centralized application. When you use ChatGPT, you have to completely trust that it will not expose your various data. I think this problem will become particularly obvious in 10 or 20 years.

Now everyone uses ChatGPT, just like chatting with a friend. But in 10 years, everyone will tell ChatGPT all their thoughts. It is possible that we will have something such as BCI (brain-computer interface), where there will be an in-depth connection between humans and robots. If your artificial intelligence has no privacy, you as a person have no privacy at all, including privacy without thoughts. This is the first question.

The second question is, if it is a centralized company, it can shut down, change the rules, and change service conditions at any time. Whether you are a person, a company, or a company, once you start relying on these, risks arise.

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

I know that many people are starting to do open source AI and decentralized AI. Actually, I use these things myself. I deliberately bought a computer - (Buterin turned around and took out the computer from the canvas bag to show it) - This computer has a GPU and NVIDIA 4070. I can run some LLM on my own computer.

When I don’t need ChatGPT’s highest level of quality, I can do it on my own computer. I find this has an advantage when I don't have internet, which is no problem. Decentralize AI is important.

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

"Periscope": I'm curious, what do you think?Waiting for the company OpenAI? Is it possible for it to become the largest, or even the ultimate, monopoly?

Buterin: The story of OpenAI is very interesting. On the one hand, it makes a particularly useful tool for everyone.

I can’t say that for everyone. Because ChatGPT has two levels: the first level is free; the second level price is 20 US dollars per month, some can be used, and some cannot be used. This tool is very useful, especially when I enter an area that I am not good at.

But there is a problem with OpenAI. At first, Elon Musk saw many big Silicon Valley companies doing artificial intelligence, and he was worried that if artificial intelligence was made by them, it would become particularly central. change? There were a lot of risks, so he opened OpenAI. Five years later, due to AI security reasons, although they did not say they would not be open source, they modified the definition - open means that their services are open.

"Periscope": became CloseAI.

Butlin: Yes, they became CloseAI. Today, another problem arises: first, they sacrificed their open source for security; then this year, they sacrificed their security for profit.

Last year there was a conflict between the company and the board of directors. After the conflict, it seemed like Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) won. Recently, they announced that they will transform from a non-profit to a profit-making company and reduce the power of the board of directors - it can be said that it will be reduced to the level of advisors. This worries me.

"Perspective": I interviewed Dr. Kai-fu Lee a few days ago. He is an artificial intelligence scientist, investor, and entrepreneur. He has a few statements that I would like to hear whether you agree with them.

He said: "The first one to make AGI to crush its opponents must be a global commercial monopoly, and it has the ambition to become an ultimate monopoly." "OpenAI is a particularly powerful monopoly. company, Sam Altman may become the largest monopolist in history. Although he does not have a monopoly today, his ambition, strategy, and clear thinking of every move are very admirable to him. Worry."

Butlin: That's it.

"Perspective": So, what do you think of Sam Altman?

Buterin: I have only met him once, so it will be difficult to judge him in depth. The only thing I can watch is how he does it. There are many things he does at OpenAI that I disagree with.

He is working on the Worldcoin project. I think the idea is good. I don’t think Worldcoin should be the world’s only digital identity, but it is solving a problem that really needs to be solved. I communicate more with the Worldcoin team, and they are more concerned about all the issues that I care about.

But there is still this problem. It is difficult to be the “next global currency”. If you want to do this, many people will object. Doing this kind of thing requires two conditions at the same time - this is very interesting - first, the world needs to believe in you; second, everyone needs to know that there is a mechanism so that they do not need to believe in you. They have made a lot of improvements in the past year and hope they can continue to develop in a good direction.

"Perspective": You just said that on the one hand, you need to trust this person, but on the other hand, you need to know that you don't need to trust this person. Does Sam meet this condition?

Buterin: I feel dissatisfied with the current OpenAI.

"Perspective": Will the departure of key people such as Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist of OpenAI) from OpenAI have an impact on the artificial intelligence landscape?

Butlin: This is a red flag, something to worry about.

A lot of people leaving does not necessarily mean that there is something wrong with the company. At the beginning of Ethereum, many co-founders left. If someone leaves or is resigned, it always means there is some conflict behind it, some different values. Need to look at the specific details.

Looking at the details of OpenAI, I think this company sacrificed open source for safety in the first step, and sacrificed safety for profit in the second step. This reminds me of the words of a founding father of the United States: You cannot sacrifice freedom for security. If you do this, you will find that you will lose both security and freedom. If you look at OpenAI’s behavior, it seems like this is what happened.

"Perspective": Who should humans trust more, Sam Altman or you?

Butlin: I don’t want to answer this. (laughing)

3. “The merger of biology and silicon is the only super intelligence that humans can participate in”

“Periscope”: How to understand the words of Peter Thiel (founding partner of Founders Fund): “Encryption technology It’s liberalism, and artificial intelligence is doctrine.”

Buterin: I think what he means is: AI is centralization, and Crypto is decentralization. Where does AI’s power come from? The first is the power of computing, and the second is data.

If you have more computing power, your AI will be stronger; if you have more data, your AI will be stronger. AI is a particularly powerful thing. The best AI is the greatest AI. If you want to build an AI, the easiest thing is to put the computing power and data in one place.

You can now see that AI companies are almost all in 3-4 places in the world, Silicon Valley, London, (several cities); but the Crypto community and projects are particularly scattered, the Ethereum Foundation, in the United States Only 25% of people, where are the rest? It's everywhere. There are more in Germany, more in the UK, and more in Singapore.There are several developers. Everyone has it, why? Crypto does something different.

Where is Crypto most useful? They are some relatively fringe places without a centralized trust center.

"Perspective": Where there is no centralized power? This means it is not the protagonist of the world.

Buterin: The goal of Crypto is that you can make some applications. In these applications, everyone can see the application rules and contracts. Not everyone can read them themselves, but at least many people can review the code. , everyone can participate, blockchain is a global thing. Therefore, some characteristics of AI and Crypto are really going in different directions.

"Perspective": The underlying values ​​are different.

Butlin: Yes. Also, why people engage in these fields differs. The common cause is money. The difference is what everyone wants to do with these fields.

Those involved in AI are particularly concerned about the development of human technology and hope to accelerate mankind into a cross-planet civilization, make mankind more powerful, and make themselves more powerful. People involved in blockchain will be concerned about decentralized trust issues, social justice issues, etc.

"Perspective": Will AI and Crypto move towards two branches, or will they converge? If we move towards a convergence or towards the two more extreme branches, what will we see on that day?

Buterin: The role of Crypto is to make a game. The game you make may have many goals. Trading can be said to be a game. Another example is the prediction market. This year Polymarket (a prediction market project) has been more successful.

Crypto can make a game, use smart contracts to execute the game rules more safely, and AI can participate in this game. If only people participate, sometimes the efficiency is not high enough. For example, in prediction market, I played more in Polymarket this year. I found that the quality of their results 4 years ago was not very high, and this year it is much higher than 4 years ago. Why? One reason is that there is more liquidity. Last year it might be 1 million or 10 million U.S. dollars, and this year it might be 100 million or 200 million U.S. dollars. But I also found that this year, its answers are relatively good for matters with low liquidity.

So, AI is likely to be involved now. AI reaction (feedback) is very fast. To do this, a person needs to be on the computer 24 hours a day and watch all the news every minute and every second. With an LLM, if you let it run, it can do its own thing.

I think there will be more examples in the future, maybe in the social field, maybe in other fields. Crypto is a security bottom layer. Crypto can be used to create a game and ensure that the rules of the game are fair. The role of AI is participation.

"Periphery": So it is not Crypto participating in AI's game, but AI participating in CKrypto game?

Butlin: Yes.

"Perspective": One day, if the ultimate power of artificial intelligence or "Big Brother" wants to destroy mankind, will the Crypto Kingdom you represent come to save mankind?

Butlin: This issue is quite complex. The role of Crypto is to set the rules of the game, not to solve specific problems.

There are many things people want to do - hope to live longer, live more comfortably, and go to Mars. In order to do this, coordination issues between people need to be solved. If you were on an island where it was just you and no one else, Crypto would be completely useless. Crypto’s only role is to solve problems between people. But you're the only one on the island, and the AI ​​is useful. Through this example, you can know that Crypto cannot solve your problem directly, but indirectly. Crypto is making games, but people, robots or other things still need to participate in these games.

If you want to see how Crypto can save the world? It can't be just Crypto, but Crypto + something else. So Crypto + what?

●The first one may be Crypto + Decentralized AI;

●The second one may be Crypto + a technology that can replace AI.

What technology can replace AI? The only answer is for humans and computers to interact more deeply. In the past two years, VR, AR, and the Metaverse have become quite popular, such as Meta glasses. What are the characteristics of these technologies? The communication, flow and efficiency between human brain and machine can become higher.

When you put on Meta glasses, the glasses can directly see where you are looking. Now the computer can receive some of your consciousness; if you can see your eyes and body through glasses, 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 communication between a person and a machine that is particularly efficient, has a high enough flow rate, and is fast enough, the computer will really become a part of you.

Why am I interested in this direction? Because there will definitely be something smarter than humans, maybe in 10 years, 100 years or 1,000 years. But is this thing smarter than humans something that will surpass us independently, or can we become part of this thing? ——I think the second way is particularly interesting.

"Perspective": Do we become part of it?

Buterin: Yes, or it becomes part of us, that is, merging - biological and silicon technologies will merge together - this technology is the only super intelligence that we humans can participate in ( super intelligent).

If this is not done, the only possibility is that a single computer is smarter than us, and they will all control the world, and humans have no power to affect the world at all.

If you want to do this, you must use the right method. There is now Neuralink (the brain-computer interface company founded by Musk), but this technology has a risk. There is a computer that can read your thoughts and your brain. If it's not open source, it's centralized, which means sending your information to a server. This means that a big company can read your thoughts, which is very dangerous. So I hope that in both the software and hardware parts, we have things that are open source and respect security.

How to participate in Crypto? The first is the business model. There is always a disadvantage with open source technology, it is difficult to find money. If you make something centralized and controlled by yourself, there are many ways to make a lot of money. As for open source technology, everyone can download it and use it, and it doesn’t need to have anything to do with you after you use it. Its technology has advantages, but the disadvantage is that it is difficult to make money. And Crypto has many ways to make money that respect open source.

If we support some open source technologies through Crypto, there may be more open source BCI, more open source artificial intelligence, and more open source everything.

"Perspective": It sounds like the AI ​​architecture is based on Crypto?

Buterin: The business model can be based on Crypto, or you can use some Crypto technology to build another architecture.

One thing I haven’t said yet is that there are some interesting new Crypto technologies recently, including PC (Programmable Cryptography, programmable cryptography) and FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption). The advantage is that you can create an AI that can perform calculations on your private data, but no other person or computer knows your private data. It does calculations with your data, but doesn't see what the data is. These techniques have been known to be possible since 1982, but the technology is reaching a stage where more applications are available.

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

Butlin: Wow, this... there is no obvious example. I respect people who maintain their principles for a long time. There have been many external changes in the past five years, and many people will change their minds. Not necessarily because of my own reasons, most of them are bad reasons - for example, a team I don't like has an idea, so I need to have an idea to suppress (suppress) them.

There are not many people who are willing to stay open-minded and principled for a long time. If they had, I would respect it.

4. “If issuing coins and setting up an exchange are the only things we do, then this industry has failed.”

"Perspective": In view of the recent popularity of artificial intelligence and its attraction to young talents, For those aspiring between blockchain and artificial intelligence career options, but what advice would you give to a technology expert who is hesitant?

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

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

Butlin: Definitely. Some people who would have participated in Crypto before are now participating in AI because AI has developed well.

I found that there are three types of people:

●The first type, their goal may be to do some of the most important things, no matter what it is, they just want to be big and influential , take part in human history. Or make more money.

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

●The third type is that they want to make money, but the quality of what they do will be lower.

I have a worry: if very smart people don’t do Crypto, people who stay in the Crypto field may not have any interesting ideas. The only applications are what everyone has been doing for many years. financial applications. This will become a situation - issue a coin and set up an exchange; issue another coin and set up an exchange; issue another coin and have a cute dog on it - these things are fun, but If they are the only ones our industry does, then the industry is failing.

The challenge for our industry is to make an application that is both meaningful and that many people enjoy participating in.

I recently discovered that there are many people who want to do this. 2022 and 2023 are very dangerous times. AI has succeeded, but Crypto has not yet succeeded. Everyone knows that AI’s LLM is very good, and what can be done with ChatGPT. But Layer 2 has not yet come out, or is in a very early stage, and the transaction fees are very high. So in 2022 and 2023, there will be the biggest difference in what AI and Crypto can do.

However, the power of Crypto has increased a lot this year, and many developers are beginning to want to make applications that are meaningful and that many users like to participate in. If the Crypto field continues to be successful, many people will still choose to participate in Crypto.

"Perspective": I told people in the venture capital industry around me that I would like to meet you today. Many people asked me to ask you the same question: How do you think the Ethereum ecosystem or the entire Web3 ecosystem has remained unchanged after so many years? A product with no practical application?

Butlin: My answer is what I just said. Before this year, transaction fees were too high, some important technologies were not yet mature, account security issues were not resolved, privacy issues were not resolved, and many issues were not resolved. Therefore, before this year, our industry did not have enough technology to make applications that ordinary people can participate in. One of the reasons why the only successful application is DeFi is because more money can be made in DeFi.

If there was an opportunity to increase your money 10 times, even ifIt's technically difficult, but you're willing to do it. If there is a 30% probability 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 10 times, and you will most likely still participate.

But if you want to do something more ordinary, the goal is not to increase your money 10 times, but to protect your money, protect your identity, or participate in some other applications. If technical difficulties and security issues are not resolved, you will not participate.

This year, we finally started to address these issues. There’s never been a better time to make meaningful applications this year.

"Perspective": Keep speculating on coins, isn't that what you want?

Butlin: No.

"Periphery": What do you want? What do you want to move the world forward?

Buterin: I hope the world will be more fair and open, and we will make some applications that can solve important trust issues. If you want to build a fair and open world, solving the problem of trust is a necessary first step. Why are so many things not so good? Because everyone doesn't know who to believe.

You can see Crypto’s application cases. In countries facing many financial problems, such as Argentina, they will be particularly interested in Crypto.

●First, this is a reliable financial system. They can put money in it and the money will not disappear one day.

●Second, they can be connected to mainstream finance. Many people use Crypto and work in American or European companies. They can earn American and European level wages and send the money to themselves or their families. , engage in fairer global affairs.

●Third, there are other applications. For example, everyone likes to talk about the words identity or credit system, but they all want to solve a problem, which is the problem of trust, and they want to know who you can trust. Now there is a topic: knowing who is a human and who is a robot.

If it is solved in a decentralized way, it will be easier for us to make some safe applications that can be used by people around the world. This avoids a risk: the fragmentation of the world.

"Perspective": It sounds like Crypto is more suitable for places where there is a lack of trust and fairness; AI is more suitable for places where people want to pursue stronger power - these are two completely different human ideals. Could it be that Crypto ignited countries like Argentina and AI ignited countries like China and the United States? From a global perspective, the ignited territories are different?

Butlin: In the long term, we all need to improve our capabilities. If we have a perfect, fair, and decentralized system, and the capabilities of those doing things are not improved, we will still fall behind after a period of time.

Technologies other than Crypto, including AI and biological science, require participation from all over the world. But there are different ways of doing these techniques. If a decentralized and more open approach is to be used, Crypto may participate. In the short term, the adoption of Crypto will be completely different.Same.

Argentina, for example, has basic financial problems. For example, the United States does not have these problems most of the time. The most useful thing about Crypto for me is donating money to some international charities. It's hard to go through a bank machine, it's easy to go through Crypto. In developed countries, the people who use this technology the most are those who particularly want to participate in the international market and society. In smaller applications, Appchain has more adoption options.

I don’t know how these things will change in the long run.

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

Butlin: I can give you a specific example. We have recently had some decentralized SocialFi applications that have been successful on Ethereum. Lens and Farcaster are the two easiest to understand examples. What is the difference between Farcaster and Twitter?

In Twitter, first, its algorithm is completely opaque; second, if you think Twitter is not good, you don’t like what it is doing, and want to move to another application, your network will not . Anyone who is dissatisfied with Twitter and wants to start a new one needs to start from 0. The problem of network effects is particularly difficult to solve.

In Farcaster, the architecture is like this - the first layer is a decentralized network, and the second layer is the interface. Users can send messages and read messages sent by others. One of the most popular clients is called Warpcast. Warpcast is a decentralized app that you can download yourself and is very easy to use. A user who has never participated in Crypto can use Warpcast. But if you don't like Warpcast and don't like what they do, there are many other clients for Farcaster, such as 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 can be seen on Warpcast, and you can also see the messages sent by Warpcast users.

The decentralized bottom layer ensures that different clients can operate with each other, which can solve the problem of Warpcast becoming a monopoly.

This is a public machine where anyone can be a client. In the Farcaster ecosystem, the open architecture has given some users some important advantages.

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

Butlin: There are speculators in many fields, such as the stock market and the sports gambling industry. Many people have this habit.

What should our industry do? First, if some people like to do something more game-likeIn finance, I hope to make alignments, and the result of their participation in these things will be useful to themselves and society.

Second, we need ways for them to expand their wealth in the long term. In most societies around the world, real estate was a business and people bought houses, but the real estate market is very unfair to many people. Everyone doesn’t know whether to make money or lose money. It would also be particularly good if we could make some financial products in the Crypto field that can make money in the long term but are connected to the real economy.

Why didn’t you succeed before? First, the regulations are not yet clear enough, but recently, many regulations have become clearer. Second, the technology must be sufficiently secure.

If you could increase your assets 10 times, you would be willing to face various risks. But the real economy will not be like this and may be lower than 3%, 8% or 10%. If your returns are reasonable, you need to care about security. Now we've solved it a little bit. I hope I can give you some better financial options.

5. “I don’t have a nanny, a driver or a bodyguard”

"Perspective": You became a billionaire at a very young age. What is your current living situation like?

Butlin: There is not much difference from 5 years ago. I would go to different places and participate in different activities.

Another change is that more people come to me to take photos.

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

Butlin: None. Maybe when participating in some big events. But most of the time there isn't.

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

Butlin: Because Singapore’s subway is so good.

"Perspective": Where else?

Butlin: Others are different. Some people don’t have the subway or are very annoyed by the subway, so they take a taxi. If I could walk, I would choose to walk. I like walking.

"Periscope": Why do your bags and watches have cats?

Butlin: Because cats are cute.

The author took the photo at the scene, with Buterin showing off his watch

"Periscope": Did you buy it in Thailand?

Butlin: No. The watch was given to me by a friend and I found the compass myself on Amazon. The cat bag was given to me by my Thai friend.

"Periscope": You said in an interview: When I was a child, I always heard stories like this. Some people are very rich, but they spend all their money on private jets, helicopters, luxury sports cars or other stupid things. , and in the end they had nothing. I remember thinking to myself, this is so stupid. So when you were rich, did you ever have any stupid thoughts? Do you succumb to it or resist it?Lost it?

Butlin: Emm, I don’t know how to answer this.

"Perspective": In other words, has wealth ever made you lost?

Butlin: I don’t think I would think like this.

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

Butlin: Not really.

"Perspective": I'm surprised that you can speak Chinese (without living in China for a long time). How did you learn and master this language?

Buterin: I started studying in 2013, when I just dropped out of college and wrote articles in "Bitcoin Magazine". I decided to travel and see the Bitcoin world in China, the United States, and Europe. I saw some articles about the Bitcoin community and projects, which was particularly interesting.

Many people told me that Chinese is the most difficult language to learn. This was a particularly interesting challenge, so I started learning. At first, I used language software. I came here for the first time in 2014 and started chatting with many friends. Just keep learning.

"Perspective": You know many languages, maybe 6? Does knowing many languages ​​help me with Crypto?

Butlin: My best are English, Russian and Chinese. After that, I learned French in a Canadian school from 2014 to 2019. I learned a little bit of German and Spanish myself. About 6. I only know a little bit of other languages.

Actually, there is. The interesting thing is that European languages ​​are easier to learn, they are very close to English, coming from Latin. Europeans all speak English, and sometimes they speak English better on technical topics. But for people who are not in Europe, this is not the case. Talking to other communities, Russian speakers, Chinese speakers, a little bit of Spanish in South America, was especially helpful.

"Perspective": What are the three most important things thinking in your mind right now?

Buterin: First, the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. What do we need to do now to make the Ethereum ecosystem, applications and communities develop better.

Second, some of the macro-human issues we have talked about include AI.

Third, there are many relatively small technical matters, such as what I need to do today, what article I want to write next, and many small problems.

"Perspective": What do you think of the US election and the two current candidates? The results are about to be announced. (Our conversation took place one day before the results of the US election were announced)

Buterin: Who will win today may not necessarily have a big impact 20 or 30 years from now. There are some trends that will happen no matter what happens today. Even if it doesn't happen today, it might happen in 2028. If it doesn't happen in the United States, it may happen elsewhere. Therefore, we mainly look at some long-term trends and global trends. Within 10 years, the world's culture, technology, race, and economy will definitely change a lot.

"Perspective": as a cosmopolitanOr a builder of some kind of utopian community, you're always trying to break down the old order and build a new one. So what do you think of the human marriage system? Do humans still need marriage?

Butlin: This topic may change a lot in 50 years. Previously, everyone’s goal was financial security first and children second. But people nowadays, at least in developed countries, do not have urgent economic problems and can think more about life and what they like. And, a lot of people don’t want to or are unwilling to (have children).

The Internet has changed our social relationships a lot. You moved from one city to another 30 years ago, which meant you lost all your friends, and that's not the case now. If things change, our lives will change a lot.

"Perspective": Are you a free man now?

Buterin: Sometimes you are free, sometimes you are not.

"Perspective": What is not free from?

Buterin: So many people are in the Ethereum community. I always wonder what they are thinking and what they want to do.

"Perspective": Do you have fear?

Butlin: Fear of bugs.