114 - In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism | Vitalik Buterin

Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is how to get started, how to get better, and how to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Guys, we have a fantastic episode for you today in defense of maximalism, in defense of Bitcoin maximalism. And who's the guest? Someone you'd never expect. Vitalik Buterin is defending Bitcoin maximalism on this episode. You'll see why in a minute, but the episode breaks it down into a few parts. First, a defense of Bitcoin maximalism and then a rebuttal. The only person that can debate Vitalik effectively is Vitalik. That's what I realized in this episode. And he does that throughout it. So listen for a few things, a few takeaways. Number one, we go through the case for why Bitcoin maximalism is right. We talk about number two, honest crypto versus grifter crypto, the difference between the two. Number three, the case for why intolerance is good. At least some intolerance. We talk about that. Number four, Vitalik's advice for bankless about how bankless should talk about alt layer ones. And number five, and this is actually at the start of the podcast green tea plus red wine. The best drink you've never had.

It's now called the V B. So if you go to your local bar and ask for a V B, they should know what that is by now.

Give me a buter in place.

I'll take one. What did you think of this episode, David?

Yeah, people thought that Vitalik's article was an April Fool's joke just because he released it on April 1st. Also, fun fact: this is not Vitalik's first article that he's released on April 1st that has raised some eyebrows. Vitalik, in my mind, steel manned the argument for Bitcoin maximalism better than I've ever heard any Bitcoiner argue for like why maximalism is good. And he really puts it into perspective as to it is pretty compelling. It's like, oh, this is why some of the properties of the crypto industry are the way that they are. Every time I talk to Vitalik Buterin, I feel like I understand this industry just a little bit better, a little bit more insightful, and a little bit more empathetic as to why people have made the choices that they've made. And so he steelmans the argument for maximalism, but then we flip it around and do the other side of the debate, as you said. But we also get into other subjects like, okay, well, how is Ethereum maximalism manifesting in your eyes? And how would you rate it on like a healthy versus unhealthy spectrum, especially as it relates to the alternative layer ones? Because Ryan, I know in the bear market 2018 to 2020, it was really two cultures. It was the Bitcoiner culture and the Ethereum culture. And it was really the Ethereum culture asking for legitimacy from Bitcoiners, trying to prove ourselves to Bitcoiners, like, hey, we're a legitimate thing. We share some of your values, and Bitcoiners were like, no, you guys are all just like, you guys have broken everything, you guys don't get it. On the flip side of things, now that that bear market's in the past and Ethereum has indeed proven out to be the ecosystem that we all thought it was going to be in that bear market. Now we aren't really arguing with Bitcoiners anymore. Now we're arguing with alternative layer ones. But we're taking the same position that Bitcoiners took to Ethereans, and now Ethereans are taking that same position with alternative layer ones, saying,

Right.

Hey, you guys are compromising on crypto. You guys are like doing all these bad things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we asked Vitalik about like, you know, where is the sweet spot? Like, is there a sweet spot? And we get his perspective on that. And I think that's really the takeaway for this episode.

Yeah, it's funny, David. I no longer have arguments with Bitcoin Maximalists. Like I just don't anymore. But I have those arguments with finance bros now.

All the time.

On the other side of things, that don't care about decentralization. It's less arguments, it's more kind of reminders as why we're in this space and why it's important. So

Yeah, and that's funny because it does position Ethereum as kind of this middle ground. It's big tent, but it's also intolerant in some ways because it does value a specific set of things and does not want to compromise on that. And so I don't know. We'll talk about this more in the debrief, which by the way is available to premium subscribers, David. But I'm really enjoying the 2022 version of Vitalic.

I see Vitality.

It's every every vintage, every year you get a different vintage of Vitalik, right? And so far in 2022, Vitalik's been a bit more spicy, a bit more um I think he's previously felt his role is to be maximally credibly neutral and understate his true opinions in 2020. If I'm starting to see a lot more of Vitalik's opinions.

Correct sometimes. And for me, it's always option B. And so this is the side of Vitalik that we're seeing in vintage 2022. And I think comes out in this episode. So you guys are really going to enjoy it. Again, it's like we don't talk too much about tech with someone who's a massive tech brain. He is as much a brain on philosophy and the social layer of crypto as he is on tech. And for me, those are some of the most fun conversations and some of the most interesting. Although we do have to get him on again to talk about like what's in store for the Ethereum roadmap. Maybe next time he comes on, we'll do that. So, guys, strap in, enjoy this episode. It's gonna be a blast. Yeah, grab a V V with us, dude. Are you gonna try that, by the way?

I think I have to

One of those?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We should do it.

Everyone's trying it out on Twitter and they're all saying like, Oh, this is better than I expected it to be.

Alright. Well, you know what? We're gonna record the roll up, and if you got some green tea, we'll do it then. But anyway, guys, grab yourself a Vitalic Buterin drink and we'll get right in the episode.

Hey Bankless Nation, we're super excited to have Vitalik Buterin back. He's the founder of Ethereum. He's a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. You know him very well from previous appearances on Bankless. Vitalik, it's great to see you again. How are you doing?

It's uh great to see you too, Ryan. Good to see you, David.

You know what? This whole episode is going to be on the topic of maximalism.

But before we get in, there was some recent Twitter hubbub Vitalik on beverage cancel culture

that I want to get you to weigh in on because you made the case for this green tea and red wine combo that I think sent the world in a tizzy, where you said you enjoy 85% green tea with a mix of 15% red wine. Can you give us the case before we begin the regular podcast? I think this needs to be heard. What is the case for the green tea and red wine combo? And can we cancel you for that?

I mean, to be fair, this isn't like a uh regular part of my life or anything. I uh only uh tried it a couple of times. The first time, pretty accidentally. Uh basically what happened uh was I was sitting on a plane with a friend and he uh had some uh green tea and some red wine that he separately ordered and intended to drink separately. And at some point he went to sleep, and then the steward people came and uh they uh offered me food and I was hungry and I wanted the food, but I wanted to be able to like have the food and also do laptopping at the same time, right? So I needed two trays. And so, okay, I thought I have one tray, my friend has another tray, and like, but this my friend's tray has these two drinks on it, and so okay, fine. Well, I have to like get rid of them somehow, so you know why not just drink them? Um so they both happened to be half full, and so I decided like why not? Um, and I just like mixed them together and drank it. Um and uh

I just realized that like, wait, wow, this is like

weird, but like less disgusting than I thought. Um, and uh I uh I tried this again, um, and like it was uh

I don't know, surprisingly better than advertised, I guess.

Would you say that this is now your drink of choice?

Um I mean uh realistically my drink of choice is still like 85 green tea, 15 more green tea. Uh but um

you know, it's uh good to have more things on your menu.

Oh my god, are people trying to cancel you for this opinion or are they more intrigued? I feel like I'm far more intrigued. This is not, I don't know, have someone would cancel you over this, but I guess there's someone out there.

Hmm. Oh yeah.

I wonder, like, is the internet um

like angry over that tweet um or when I uh looked like a version of Tom Brady that was on meth for two years.

That was amazing. We gotta talk about that too. So how did you first of all, the article in Time was absolutely phenomenal. But um God,

people are so mean on Twitter. Yeah. Like what is up with that? And like, how do you like respond to that and deal with that?

I guess you just get used to it. Um like uh

you know eventually you just kind of like realize that like okay you know you can just think of them as being kind of like you know voyag NPCs that only really exist on the internet um and uh like don't really pay too much serious attention about them and just kind of realize that uh you know the kinds of things that they say are actually uh a reflection of themselves much more than they're a reflection of you.

Oof.

And uh

Oof.

I guess,

I don't know, eventually you learn to laugh about it.

How long did that cause you've been having to fend off internet trolls for a really long time since since before I would say even crypto was even dominant on crypto Twitter? Like going through like the whole Bitcoiner movement in the early days of Bitcoin before Ethereum was even a thing. I would imagine was there toxicity back then? And then where was like this first instance of like internet toxicity that you had to contend with? And how have you just dealt with it over the years?

It definitely started in 2014. Um, and I mean it definitely like hurt more in 2014 than it does now. Um, I think because back in 2014 I still had this mindset that like Ethereum is this great new crypto project, um, and uh it should become a standard bearer for the space. Um, and it should be kind of like we should like try really hard to do it well so that like all parts of the space love us. And I was just totally not clued in about the extents to which that was actually completely not possible even then. Um, right, like this is then uh Bitcoin people started, um, I think like aft really after Ethereum began, uh, kind of having this line that, like, oh, uh, you know, if uh

It's not Bitcoin. It's not legitimate.

Well, like there was a little bit of that in uh 2013. Um there was that article from uh Bitcoin Kravis and I wrote an article against uh him on uh Bitcoin magazine a couple of months before the uh idea for Ethereum came. Uh but um in

2014 it really kind of went to another level. Uh people were

kind of very strident um about this uh maximalist viewpoint um and str uh starting to kind of take all sorts of things as uh evidence that Ethereum is a scam. Uh and uh

There's I mean some people expressed their uh viewpoint in um you know reasonably polite multi-thousand-word blog posts that I could uh you know lob a multi-thousand-word blog post back at. Uh but uh other people uh definitely preferred to use more um I guess uh low IQ uh means of uh dialectic. Uh

and uh

yeah, I don't know. That

that definitely made me sad at the beginning. Um and eventually, I guess I was able to sort of emotionally write them off. Um and uh

then

Yeah, I don't know. Since then it has gotten easier. Like, I think in general, um, like people being mean on the internet feels worse when it's people you respect. Like, if it's people you're just able to kind of dismiss and um, you know, mentally put them into this kind of box of, you know, oh, they're like, they're not people, they're voyag NPCs, then like it uh

really doesn't hurt at all. Um, but uh

like