Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has recently expressed his desire to rekindle the blockchain’s original “cypherpunk” vision. This vision was largely overshadowed around 2017, when cryptocurrencies became highly financialized.

Buterin, in a blog post dated late December, stated his view that Ethereum was initially designed as a “public decentralized shared hard drive” capable of utilizing peer-to-peer messaging and decentralized file storage. However, with the escalation of financialization on the Ethereum network in 2017, this sense of vision steadily disappeared.

The Ethereum co-founder emphasized the ‘cypherpunk’ values he wants to be reestablished within the Ethereum framework: decentralization, open participation, resistance to censorship, and credible neutrality. He maintains hope that non-financial applications on the blockchain can thrive.

He also pointed out that several features such as rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, account abstraction, and second-generation privacy solutions have gradually become more accepted, thus potentially reinforcing these ‘cypherpunk’ principles.

He further expressed a desire to see more cypherpunk-inspired activities within Ethereum. These could include participating in votes without comprising one’s privacy, and integrating mechanisms like quadratic voting and cross-tribal consensus finding to assist organizations in self-governance.

Buterin candidly acknowledged that it’s quite possible to build structures within the cryptocurrency ecosystem that don’t adhere to these values. He provided the example of constructing a highly centralized layer secured by multisignature with no intention for modification, or an NFT system where the tokens are stored on a centralized website rather than a decentralized file storage platform like IPFS. It’s important, he stressed, to resist these types of pressures to prevent the loss of the unique value offered by the crypto ecosystem and avoid the recreation of an inefficient web2 ecosystem.

Buterin wrapped up his thoughts by expressing his admiration for the clever solutions that have arisen in response to some of the industry’s major problems. He specifically mentioned decentralized exchanges as an effective countermeasure to hacks on centralized exchanges, alongside Cowswap, Flashbots Protect, and MEV Blocker, which have helped mitigate the severity of sandwich attacks on Ethereum users by maximum extractable value exploiters.