04-14-2025, 08:45 AM
Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most
<p style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 15px; width:240px;"><img src="https://images.cointelegraph.com/images/840_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjUtMDQvMDE5NjMxNzQtZWZhMS03NGIwLWI0OWQtNjBkNDFhMDc2Y2Qz.jpg"></p><p><p style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 15px; width:240px;"><img src="https://images.cointelegraph.com/images/840_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjUtMDQvMDE5NjMxNzQtZWZhMS03NGIwLWI0OWQtNjBkNDFhMDc2Y2Qz.jpg" alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most"></p><p>Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues it’s Ethereum’s application layer, not its infrastructure layer, where Ethereum needs “good social philosophy” the most. <p>The app layer is where developers build decentralized applications on top of <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/what-is-ethereum-a-beginners-guide-to-eth-cryptocurrency" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">Ethereum’s base infrastructure</a> and where they make decisions about how these programs operate. </p><p>In an April 12 post on the social media platform Warpcast, Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" text="null" title="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420">responded</a> to a user’s argument that Ethereum needs a new generation of developers rooted in Ethereum’s core values to <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-shows-mild-signs-rebounding-santiment" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-shows-mild-signs-rebounding-santiment">renew</a> itself. He argued that it’s the app layer that needs this more. </p><p>“Apps are 80% special purpose. What apps you build depends heavily on what ideas you have of what Ethereum apps, and Ethereum as a whole, are there to do for the world. And so having good ideas on this topic out there becomes crucially important,” Buterin said. </p><figure><img alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most" src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-04/01963225-090b-7dc5-b120-70c2060f4aee" title=""><figcaption style="text-align: center;"><p><em>Source: </em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em>Vitalik Buterin</em></a></p></figcaption></figure><p>In comparison, Buterin says a programming language like C++ may not be as influenced by the creator’s ideology, as it is a general-purpose tool that doesn’t have much surface to be made worse or improved by social philosophy. </p><p>“Imagine that C++ had been made by a totalitarian racist fascist. Would it be a worse language? Probably not,” he said.</p><p><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/a-beginners-guide-to-understanding-the-layers-of-blockchain-technology" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">Ethereum’s layer 1</a> is similar to an extent, argued Buterin, though it is more exposed to philosophical influence, <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-merge-brings-down-ethereum-s-network-power-consumption-by-over-99-9" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">citing its move to proof-of-stake</a> (PoS) and supporting light clients as examples. </p><p>“Someone who doesn’t believe in decentralization would not add light clients, or good forms of account abstraction,” he said. </p><template data-ct-widget="buzzsprout" data-buzzsprout-podcast-id="2096305" data-buzzsprout-episode-id="16738093"></template><p>“Someone who doesn’t mind energy waste would not spend half a decade moving to PoS, but the Ethereum Virtual Machine opcodes might have been roughly the same either way. So Ethereum is perhaps 50% general-purpose,” Buterin added. </p><h2>Apps with good social philosophy vs bad </h2><p>In a follow-up post, Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x15ed32c4" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">told</a> a user that, in his opinion, crypto privacy protocol Railgun, Web3 social protocol Farcaster, <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/polymarket-trump-ukraine-bet-whale-governance-attack" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">decentralized prediction market Polymarket</a> and messenger app Signal are examples of apps with a good social philosophy. </p><figure><img alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most" src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-04/01963226-5f27-7a7f-9282-4dac77960ee0" title=""><figcaption style="text-align: center;"><p><em>Source: </em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x15ed32c4" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em>Vitalik Buterin</em></a></p></figcaption></figure><p>“You build apps that do the right thing behind the scenes by default. Signal is a reasonably good example of this, though it has significant flaws of its own. Farcaster is also a good example of this,” Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x193b0a92" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">said</a>.</p><p><em><strong>Related: </strong></em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-moral-reversal-crypto" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em><strong>Vitalik Buterin criticizes crypto’s moral shift toward gambling</strong></em></a></p><p>On the other hand, Buterin said the memecoin platform Pump.fun, the collapsed crypto ecosystem Terra, its native token Terra (<a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/terra-price-index" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">LUNA</a>), and the <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ftx-collapse-the-crypto-industry-s-lehman-brothers-moment" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">collapsed crypto exchange FTX </a>are examples of bad social philosophy.</p><p>“The differences in what the app does stem from differences in beliefs in developers’ heads about what they are here to accomplish,” he said. </p><p><em><strong>Magazine: </strong></em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/bitcoin-100k-price-target-shaquille-oneal-nft-synthetix-hodlers-digest/" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em><strong>Bitcoin eyes $100K by June, Shaq to settle NFT lawsuit, and more: Hodler’s Digest, April 6 – 12</strong></em></a></p><template data-name="subscription_form" data-type="defi_newsletter" label="Subscription Form: DeFi Newsletter"></template></p>
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-b...er_inbound
<p style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 15px; width:240px;"><img src="https://images.cointelegraph.com/images/840_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjUtMDQvMDE5NjMxNzQtZWZhMS03NGIwLWI0OWQtNjBkNDFhMDc2Y2Qz.jpg"></p><p><p style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 15px; width:240px;"><img src="https://images.cointelegraph.com/images/840_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjUtMDQvMDE5NjMxNzQtZWZhMS03NGIwLWI0OWQtNjBkNDFhMDc2Y2Qz.jpg" alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most"></p><p>Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues it’s Ethereum’s application layer, not its infrastructure layer, where Ethereum needs “good social philosophy” the most. <p>The app layer is where developers build decentralized applications on top of <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/what-is-ethereum-a-beginners-guide-to-eth-cryptocurrency" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">Ethereum’s base infrastructure</a> and where they make decisions about how these programs operate. </p><p>In an April 12 post on the social media platform Warpcast, Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" text="null" title="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420">responded</a> to a user’s argument that Ethereum needs a new generation of developers rooted in Ethereum’s core values to <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-shows-mild-signs-rebounding-santiment" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-shows-mild-signs-rebounding-santiment">renew</a> itself. He argued that it’s the app layer that needs this more. </p><p>“Apps are 80% special purpose. What apps you build depends heavily on what ideas you have of what Ethereum apps, and Ethereum as a whole, are there to do for the world. And so having good ideas on this topic out there becomes crucially important,” Buterin said. </p><figure><img alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most" src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-04/01963225-090b-7dc5-b120-70c2060f4aee" title=""><figcaption style="text-align: center;"><p><em>Source: </em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x62628420" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em>Vitalik Buterin</em></a></p></figcaption></figure><p>In comparison, Buterin says a programming language like C++ may not be as influenced by the creator’s ideology, as it is a general-purpose tool that doesn’t have much surface to be made worse or improved by social philosophy. </p><p>“Imagine that C++ had been made by a totalitarian racist fascist. Would it be a worse language? Probably not,” he said.</p><p><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/a-beginners-guide-to-understanding-the-layers-of-blockchain-technology" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">Ethereum’s layer 1</a> is similar to an extent, argued Buterin, though it is more exposed to philosophical influence, <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-merge-brings-down-ethereum-s-network-power-consumption-by-over-99-9" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">citing its move to proof-of-stake</a> (PoS) and supporting light clients as examples. </p><p>“Someone who doesn’t believe in decentralization would not add light clients, or good forms of account abstraction,” he said. </p><template data-ct-widget="buzzsprout" data-buzzsprout-podcast-id="2096305" data-buzzsprout-episode-id="16738093"></template><p>“Someone who doesn’t mind energy waste would not spend half a decade moving to PoS, but the Ethereum Virtual Machine opcodes might have been roughly the same either way. So Ethereum is perhaps 50% general-purpose,” Buterin added. </p><h2>Apps with good social philosophy vs bad </h2><p>In a follow-up post, Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x15ed32c4" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">told</a> a user that, in his opinion, crypto privacy protocol Railgun, Web3 social protocol Farcaster, <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/polymarket-trump-ukraine-bet-whale-governance-attack" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">decentralized prediction market Polymarket</a> and messenger app Signal are examples of apps with a good social philosophy. </p><figure><img alt="Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most" src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-04/01963226-5f27-7a7f-9282-4dac77960ee0" title=""><figcaption style="text-align: center;"><p><em>Source: </em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x15ed32c4" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em>Vitalik Buterin</em></a></p></figcaption></figure><p>“You build apps that do the right thing behind the scenes by default. Signal is a reasonably good example of this, though it has significant flaws of its own. Farcaster is also a good example of this,” Buterin <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x193b0a92" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">said</a>.</p><p><em><strong>Related: </strong></em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-moral-reversal-crypto" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em><strong>Vitalik Buterin criticizes crypto’s moral shift toward gambling</strong></em></a></p><p>On the other hand, Buterin said the memecoin platform Pump.fun, the collapsed crypto ecosystem Terra, its native token Terra (<a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/terra-price-index" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">LUNA</a>), and the <a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ftx-collapse-the-crypto-industry-s-lehman-brothers-moment" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null">collapsed crypto exchange FTX </a>are examples of bad social philosophy.</p><p>“The differences in what the app does stem from differences in beliefs in developers’ heads about what they are here to accomplish,” he said. </p><p><em><strong>Magazine: </strong></em><a data-ct-non-breakable="null" href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/bitcoin-100k-price-target-shaquille-oneal-nft-synthetix-hodlers-digest/" rel="null" target="null" text="null" title="null"><em><strong>Bitcoin eyes $100K by June, Shaq to settle NFT lawsuit, and more: Hodler’s Digest, April 6 – 12</strong></em></a></p><template data-name="subscription_form" data-type="defi_newsletter" label="Subscription Form: DeFi Newsletter"></template></p>
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-b...er_inbound