Ethereum white paper predicted DeFi but missed NFTs: Vitalik Buterin

At the end of the last decade, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revisited his predictions made over the years, demonstrating a knack for getting right about abstract ideas compared to issues of on-production software development. Is.

Buterin started Twitter Thread Addressing his article on 23 July 2013 in which he highlighted the major advantages of Bitcoin (BTC) – internationalism and censorship resistance. Buterin foresaw the potential of bitcoin to protect the purchasing power of citizens in countries such as Iran, Argentina, China, and Africa.

However, Buterin also saw an increase in stablecoin adoption as he saw Argentine businesses operating in Tether (USDT). He backs up his decade-old ideas around the negative effects of bitcoin regulation.

My thoughts today: Sure, the decentralization of bitcoin will allow it to still *survive* under a super-hostile regulatory environment, but it *cannot thrive*. Successful censorship resistance strategies require a combination of technical robustness and public legitimacy.

— vitalik.eth (@vitalikbuterin) 1 January 2022

The entrepreneur still believes that “the cost of the Internet of Money should not exceed 5 cents per transaction” and highlighted Ethereum’s ongoing efforts to improve the scalability capabilities of the blockchain.

5. I should also add that the basic *idea* of sharpening is not complete.

Blockchain 1.0: Every Node Downloads Everything, There’s Consensus
BitTorrent: Each node only downloads a few things, but no consensus
Model: BitTorrent-like efficiency but with blockchain-like consensus

— vitalik.eth (@vitalikbuterin) 1 January 2022

Buterin cited an article saying, “I liked altcoins before the altcoin cool,” he bases this claim through three arguments: different chains are optimized for different goals, multiple chains cost less. And in case of core development team an alternative is needed. Wrong.

On the flipside, Buterin hit back on his support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), saying that communities formed around a revolt, even if they have a good reason, often have a hard time long term, adding that “they We value bravery over ability and are united around resistance rather than moving forward in a coherent manner.”

11. Applications envisaged in the Ethereum Whitepaper: https://t.co/6HCoO2CSW8

* ERC20-style tokens
* Algorithmic stable coins
* Domain Name System (eg ENS)
* Decentralized file storage and computing
* DAO
* Wallets with withdrawal limits
* Oracles
*prediction market

— vitalik.eth (@vitalikbuterin) 1 January 2022

“Quite correct (originally anticipated “DeFi”), although incentive file storage + compute hasn’t taken that much (yet?), and of course I missed NFTs entirely.”

Concluding the findings, Buterin endorsed the instinct that helped him to fix mistakes early, saying: “On technology, I was right more often on abstract ideas than on production software dev issues. Over time The latter had to learn to understand.”

related: Vitalik Buterin ETH 2.0 . Outlines the roadmap for ‘Endgame’

In early December, Buterin shared his vision for a “plausible roadmap” for ETH 2.0, suggesting “a second-tier bet with lower resource requirements” for distributed block verification.

Additionally, he proposed the introduction of fraud-proof or ZK-SNARKS which could serve as a cheaper alternative for users to check block validity. According to Buterin:

,[With these updates] We find a chain where block production is still centralized, but block verification is trustworthy and highly decentralized, and the special anti-censorship magic prevents block producers from being censored.”