Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin: I Feel My Influence On Ethereum Continues To Diminish

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. (Tech Crunch)

JAKARTA – The founder of the crypto currency Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, admits that his influence is decreasing. In fact, Buterin several times had to convince several people in the Ethereum community to push them towards a certain goal.

“I feel like my influence on Ethereum continues to decline every six months,” said the Ethereum founder.

“Right now the number of people I even have to convince to push in a certain direction is significant. If you watch some of the EIPs (Ethereum upgrade proposals) I've personally promoted, some of them don't even work. So for most of them, you have to try hard enough to get everyone's attention."

“EIP-4488 is one such example. If I had more control, it would have been in Ethereum," he said.

According to CoinCu, due to the large number of stakeholders involved in the decision-making process, Vitalik Buterin said in an interview that implementing major changes to the Ethereum protocol is getting harder and harder. Currently, protocol choice “tends to be made” via bi-weekly calls known as “all core developer calls,” where everyone has to agree to come forward with a proposal.

“Even at the start, the research team had to agree. And then at a later stage, the core developers, the people who actually write the code, have to agree too," said Buterin.

He went on to say that the Ethereum process is “definitely more vetocratic” than it was three years ago, and “definitely much more vetocratic” than it was six years ago, when “we can get change accepted and it will be incorporated very quickly.”

“Even now, I feel like the window is closing down on substantial things. It's getting harder and harder to do great things even today," Buterin said.