Vitalik Talks About Cancun Upgrade, Quantum Threats, AI & Crypto, and Social on Farcaster

At the ETHTaipei 2024 conference, Vitalik Buterin participated in interviews with several media outlets, sharing his views on hot topics such as the Cancun upgrade, addressing potential quantum threats, AI & Crypto, Ethereum re-staking, and decentralized social interactions. He also offered advice for non-native English speakers and new blockchain developers.

In addition, Vitalik Buterin discussed the centralized risks of Ethereum staking and introduced a new conceptual framework called “Rainbow Staking.” This framework aims to integrate “protocol services” with a plug-and-play approach, targeting Minimum Viable Issuance (MVI) and countering the emergence of LST dominating over ETH as the currency of the Ethereum network. By fostering competitive participation through offering different service categories, it enhances the economic value of individual stakeholders and facilitates achieving Single Slot Finality (SSF).

Below is Vitalik Buterin's response to media questions:

Q: Your activity on Farcaster seems to be higher than on Twitter. Can decentralized social applications like Farcaster really compete with Web2 social applications？ Or can they disrupt social patterns？

Vitalik Buterin: Yes, I think one interesting aspect of the social space is that it has network effects but also anti-network effects. Twitter is a platform that aggregates various demographics but also tends to attract those who are genuinely annoying. I've found that Farcaster has accumulated a sufficient number of users and is quite interesting. On this platform, I can engage in higher-quality interactions, although it still needs improvement.

I believe that while Twitter may differentiate between high-quality content and users, and low-quality content and users, many criticize these mechanisms, including management and blue check verification, as they could become a centralized tool or privilege serving specific viewpoints and groups. However, the crypto space, including many non-financial applications like Ethereum, fundamentally addresses this issue and attempts to solve trust problems of this nature. Decentralized social networking can truly address this issue.

Another important feature of Farcaster is that it is not a server but a shared platform. Therefore, in principle, you can use your own client, which can read or write the same content, and all users on this network can see it. I think this can definitely become a place where people start to try to create their own clients and add interesting new features. For example, you can imagine people posting their community notes on Farcaster or publishing various AI-based discussions or predictions. On Farcaster, you can imagine people creating their mechanisms to identify high-reputation participants and low-reputation participants, among other things. Different groups can adopt different methods. All these things can be done by different clients.

Another thing that excites me is that I find Farcaster to be particularly practical, smooth to use, and simple enough, and it is being used by some non-crypto enthusiasts. I think this is something that many applications have not achieved, and it sets a benchmark for other similar applications.

Q: How does the Cancun upgrade contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem？ Is this upgrade better than expected？

Vitalik Buterin: The purpose of the Cancun upgrade is to significantly increase scalability and drastically reduce Layer 2 (especially Rollups) transaction costs. This upgrade achieves this by creating a separate data space within each block that cannot be accessed by the EVM. This is important because it also means that when clients verify Ethereum blocks, they don't need to access this data simultaneously. We have seen a significant drop in Layer 2 fees over the past week. I need to remind everyone here that these fees may increase again as the number of users and blocks increases due to increased user and transaction volume. However, this is still a significant scalability upgrade.

Regarding the second question, it depends on your understanding of “better.” From a technical perspective, the upgrade has progressed smoothly, better than any fork before it. However, the usage is a bit low. The goal is for each block to include three blobs, but the average usage is only one blob. I believe that usage will increase over time, but currently, it is indeed good news for Rollups because it will be very cheap. However, I expect usage to increase in the coming months.

Q: How do you think Ethereum should address the urgent issue of quantum computing threats, and what impact does this have on the broader

cryptocurrency

ecosystem？

Vitalik Buterin: Regarding quantum computing threats, I think there are several aspects to consider. First, the Ethereum Foundation is aware of the potential threat of quantum computing and will have some relevant standards and guidelines. From a technical perspective, we already have anti-quantum algorithms for each area vulnerable to quantum attacks. For example, quantum computers can crack existing elliptic curve signatures, but we already have multiple anti-quantum algorithms, such as hash functions, Winternitz signatures, and so on.

Another issue is how to address the impact of quantum readiness on the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. In this regard, we need to make the Ethereum consensus layer resistant to quantum attacks. There are some engineering challenges because our current methods largely rely on efficient BLS signatures. Any quantum-based approach will be more inefficient. This is also one reason why I have been advocating for initially adopting 8192 signature counts. We need to give ourselves more room for adjustments to cope with potentially inefficient algorithms that may be required. Meanwhile, researchers are working hard to optimize, measure, and benchmark post-quantum alternatives.

Overall, we need to consider multiple aspects comprehensively, including adopting anti-quantum algorithms, adjusting the consensus layer, researching post-quantum alternatives, etc., to address the security challenges of quantum readiness for Ethereum and the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Q: In your opinion, what are the benefits of combining AI with cryptocurrencies？ How will this reshape the industry？ In February, you discussed the role of AI in debugging code. Could you provide more ideas on how AI can be used in crypto and Ethereum？

Vitalik Buterin: AI and cryptocurrencies are two very important technological trends today. There is a saying that AI tends to centralize, while cryptocurrencies are striving for decentralization. There is some complementarity between the two. But the question is whether we can transform this concept into actual application examples in a way that is meaningful and productive for both.

One of them is that AI participates in predicting markets other than Ethereum on Ethereum, which can essentially make the market more granular and create APIs that can play a role in it. Another is to incorporate AI as part of a wallet to help users understand the encrypted environment they are interacting with. The third is to embed AI using cryptography, including ZK, SNARK, MPC, etc., to create secure, powerful, and privacy-protecting AI models, making them central participants in on-chain applications, whether it's DApps or other forms like Oracles. And the fourth is, if successful, it can be used for AI in other fields.

In these applications, I think the first two are the most obvious short-term applications, while the latter two are more speculative. I certainly don't want to leave the impression that the application of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies will become the next major narrative driving the industry forward, but I do think these intersections are worth further exploration.

Additionally, another application is that AI can perform rolling debugging of code, one of the biggest challenges facing the current crypto space is code errors and bugs. A hopeful possibility is that AI can greatly simplify the process of using formal verification tools to prove that code sets meet specific properties.

Q: What is your view on the wave of Ethereum re-staking？

Vitalik Buterin: Re-staking is indeed an interesting idea, but the risk of it being taken over by centralized participants exists, as well as various systemic risks and effects on the Ethereum validator set. I know some projects are researching different methods. So far, I have only been observing this area and look forward to seeing future developments.

Q: Looking at the development and evolution of cryptocurrencies, what has surprised you the most？ How do you think the cryptocurrency industry will look like in 5 years？

Vitalik Buterin: The development of NFTs and meme tokens surprised me the most. Technologically, the rapid progress of zero-knowledge technology is much faster than we expected.

Q: Do you have any advice for new blockchain developers？

Vitalik Buterin: Firstly, if you have a certain level of English proficiency, translating some content can be valuable. You can also summarize information or actively participate in the co-building of protocols (communities) since many protocols are trying to welcome more participants from around the world, or to become voters or badge holders.