Ethereum Co-Founder Buterin Emphasizes Social Philosophy in Application Layer

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has underscored the critical role of a robust social philosophy in the development of the Ethereum application layer. In a recent post on Warpcast, a decentralized social media platform, Buterin asserted that the success of Ethereum will not be solely determined by its infrastructure but by the intent and values embedded in the applications built on top of it.

Buterin emphasized that the application layer is where ideology plays a pivotal role, as it mirrors the intentions of developers as much as the underlying code. He cited several applications as exemplars of good social philosophy, including Railgun, Farcaster, Polymarket, and Signal. These applications, according to Buterin, are designed to promote truth-seeking and serve the broader public good. In contrast, he criticized applications like Pump.Fun, Terra/Luna, and FTX for their misaligned intent, which has resulted in extractive behavior and systems that cater to narrow interests.

Pump.Fun, a Solana-based memecoin platform, was highlighted for its notorious livestreaming chaos, which included disturbing incidents and a tragic real-life death. Despite the implementation of new moderation guidelines, the platform's reputation has been severely tarnished, leading to a significant decline in daily transactions. Buterin contrasted this with Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform built on Ethereum, which he commended for fostering truth-seeking and positive-sum purposes.

Buterin's remarks come at a time when Ethereum has been experiencing stagnation in activity and increased competition from rival blockchain networks. However, his post suggests that the future of Ethereum will hinge on the values and intent behind the applications developed on its platform. He believes that the growth phase of the application layer is when a good social philosophy is most essential, as it will dictate the network's ability to promote truth-seeking and serve the broader public good.

In his post, Buterin responded to a user's argument that Ethereum needs a new generation of developers rooted in its core values to renew itself. He contended that it is the application layer that requires this more urgently. "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 stated.

Buterin also drew a comparison between Ethereum's application layer and a general-purpose programming language like C++. He argued that while C++ may not be significantly influenced by the creator's ideology, Ethereum's application layer is more exposed to philosophical influence. For instance, Ethereum's move to proof-of-stake (PoS) and support for light clients are examples of decisions driven by philosophical beliefs. "Someone who doesn’t believe in decentralization would not add light clients, or good forms of account abstraction," he said. "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.

In a follow-up post, Buterin elaborated on his views, stating that apps with good social philosophy are those that do the right thing behind the scenes by default. He cited Signal as a reasonably good example, despite its flaws, and Farcaster as another example of an app with a good social philosophy. In contrast, he criticized Pump.Fun, the collapsed crypto ecosystem Terra, its native token Terra (LUNA), and the collapsed crypto exchange FTX as examples of bad social philosophy. "The differences in what the app does stem from differences in beliefs in developers’ heads about what they are here to accomplish," he said.