Vitalik Buterin Critiques Celebrity Crypto Projects and Shares Blueprint for Legitimate Ventures
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed unhappiness with the current wave of celebrity crypto initiatives, citing a lack of genuine societal benefits. He praised groups like Stoner Cats for funding real-world causes.
Buterin also outlined the requirements that celebrity cryptocurrency ventures must follow to earn his approval.
Vitalik Buterin’s critiques of celebrity cryptocurrency projects are worth reading.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed concern about the current wave of celebrity-backed cryptocurrency initiatives. Chris Burniske, a partner at the venture capital firm Placeholder, made a statement that prompted his comments.
On June 1, Burniske shared his thoughts on cryptocurrency MOTHER on social networking platform X, anticipating that it might establish a trend for celebrity endorsements in cryptocurrencies.
MOTHER, founded by Australian artist Iggy Azalea, has lately reached an all-time high. According to Burniske, “If MOTHER breaks into sustainable value creation, it’ll also be the mother of this cycle’s celebrity experimentation.”
On Wednesday, Buterin responded to Burniske’s X post:
So far, I’m not impressed with ‘this cycle’s celebrity experiments’.
The Ethereum co-founder explained: “‘Financialization as a means toward an end,’ I can respect if the end is worthy (healthcare, open source software, art, etc.).” In contrast, he was critical of financialization “as the final product.”
Features that could garner respect from Vitalik Buterin for celebrity cryptocurrency projects
In a subsequent piece, Buterin detailed the requirements for a celebrity crypto project to earn his admiration. “A quick summary of features that a celebrity crypto project needs to have for me to be more willing to respect it,” he stated in his post.
To begin, he stated that the project must “have some kind of public-good goal that it’s serving, other than enriching celebrities and early adopters.” He stated, “Realistically, either an art project or the celebrity’s favourite charity, or both.”
He reiterated the advice from his March post in his conclusion.
The North Star should aim to create a project in which, even if all tokens engaged eventually go to zero, the average individual who participated feels content to have done so.
“Regular businesses and charities accomplish this goal all the time,” Buterin pointed out. “It’s a low bar, but things we build should meet it as well.”
