Translation: Wu Says Blockchain
This episode of "The Chopping Block" focuses on Vitalik's public criticism of projects like Pump.fun on Farcaster, sparking a clash of values and public opinion turbulence within the Ethereum community and external ecosystems like Solana and Base. Four guests—Haseeb (Managing Partner at Dragonfly), Tom (DeFi Expert), Robert (Founder of Superstate), and Tarun (Founder and CEO of Gauntlet)—debate the importance of "product-market fit (PMF) versus moral judgment," exploring whether Vitalik has the right to conduct a "moral judgment" on Web3 applications and how the community understands the tension between the role of founders and industry thought leaders. Amidst criticism and resonance, the program also redefines Vitalik's unique position in the crypto industry: ideals that do not sway with the wind, and a stance that does not pander.
The Moral Debate Sparked by Vitalik's Criticism of Pump.fun
Haseeb: Let's talk about what has been happening recently in the Ethereum community. Once again, the Ethereum circle is embroiled in controversy. The Ethereum Foundation has undergone quite a few personnel changes during this time.
The incident was triggered by a Forecaster post from Vitalik (a "Cast" published on the Farcaster platform). In this cast, Vitalik criticized some L1 blockchains for lacking a moral stance, meaning they "lack a philosophical foundation," are unclear about why they are building an L1 chain, and do not have a clear ideology to guide what applications they should build or what role they hope the blockchain will play in the world.
He made an analogy, asking: if C++ were a programming language designed by totalitarian, racist, fascist individuals, would it become worse because of that? Probably not, because C++ is a general-purpose language that is not easily contaminated by ideology. But Ethereum L1 is different; if you fundamentally do not believe in decentralization, then you will not push for light clients, data availability layers, account abstraction, or spend ten years promoting the PoS transition.
He then pointed out that 80% of the applications on Ethereum are special purpose, and what applications you build largely depends on what you believe Ethereum should contribute to the world. Therefore, having the right ideology in this regard is very important.
Haseeb: Then he provided examples of what he considers "good" and "bad"—the good ones being Railgun, Farcaster, Polymarket, and Signald; the bad ones being Pump.fun, Terra, and FTX. This segment sparked strong controversy within the Ethereum community and the "non-Ethereum camp." People began to question: Is Vitalik now setting "moral standards" for the entire industry? Tarun, what do you think?
Tarun: I want to say that this controversy is not entirely a "Ethereum vs. non-Ethereum" opposition; more accurately, it is three camps speaking out: Ethereum, Solana, and Base. Surprisingly, Base and Solana are on the same side in this matter, opposing Vitalik's negative labeling of Pump.fun.
For example, Jesse Pollak (a key figure at Base) believes that Pump.fun is essentially a betting market that combines internet content and attention economy, a model that is widely accepted in their ecosystem, similar to products like Zora.
In the Solana community, the more prevalent value is "liberalism": you can play if you want, even if it's a casino game, as long as you are willing to take the risk; that is your choice. In the Ethereum community, there is usually a greater emphasis on the "moral positioning" of applications—such as whether you are building privacy protection tools (like Railgun) or decentralized prediction markets (like Polymarket).
Haseeb: The good examples Vitalik gave are Polymarket and Farcaster, right?
Tarun: Yes. But I particularly want to mention that the user base of Railgun, which he mentioned, is actually very small according to on-chain data. I want to ask, why can such an application be considered a "moral benchmark"? Is there a selective bias in this evaluation standard?
Tom: The small user base of Railgun may also have some "external reasons."
Value Conflicts Between Ethereum and Solana Communities on "Acceptable Applications"
Tarun: Yes, there are certainly external factors behind this, but I want to point out that the current situation is a bit like "royal decree"—what Vitalik says is like declaring the righteous path. The problem is that even L2 application developers and DeFi practitioners within the Ethereum ecosystem are publicly criticizing him, indicating that his words are not even welcomed internally in Ethereum.
I think many Ethereum application developers acknowledge that Pump.fun may have a certain "exploitative" nature, but at the same time, it has indeed brought new interaction models that people want to use. There is actually a deep divide within Ethereum—some believe that if an application could bring negative externalities to L1, it should be rejected, but in the Solana world, this viewpoint does not hold; people are more inclined to "let the market choose."
Haseeb: Do you think he would apply the same standards to evaluate Satoshi Dice back in the day?
Tarun: Good question. Satoshi Dice was an early gambling application on Bitcoin where users could gamble directly with BTC. I think Vitalik's views have changed. Based on my observations of him over the past decade, I feel that he may not have been so negative about such things before, but his stance is clearly stricter now.
However, I think the most interesting point this time is that many developers within the Ethereum ecosystem, who would never publicly criticize Vitalik, have collectively spoken out against him, indicating that this "moral critique" line has indeed struck a chord with many.
Haseeb: Tom, what do you think?
Tom: My view is that Vitalik has never been good at "picking applications." Some of the applications he likes are usually not very user-friendly. While I understand his support for Polymarket, he also liked Augur in the past; I think he is essentially obsessed with prediction markets rather than having a discerning judgment about specific products.
To me, this feels a bit like "who cares." Even if Vitalik has long publicly expressed this viewpoint, it would not change the technical direction of Ethereum or Solana. Solana was not designed to support Pump.fun, nor was Ethereum created to stop it. These things are more like the result of "natural ecological evolution" rather than products driven by the subjective push of designers.
Different chains have different atmospheres, essentially because people with different values are attracted to different ecosystems, rather than due to differences in underlying functionalities. Ultimately, this is more like a cultural agglomeration effect rather than being determined by technical characteristics.
Does Vitalik Have the Qualification to Conduct "Moral Judgments" on On-Chain Applications?
Haseeb: Anatoly (co-founder of Solana) responded to this controversy by saying, "When you don't have product-market fit (PMF), you start to get political." This is his comment on the entire incident.
Tarun: However, I think the reverse is also true: sometimes, when you have too strong a product-market fit, "politics" can also arise. You can look at Bridgewater, Facebook; those places that have reached extreme success inevitably lead to internal strife, policy-making, and power struggles. So I think Anatoly's statement sounds a bit one-sided; in reality, both situations can lead to "politicization."
Tom: I also find it quite ironic. Solana initially shouted "let's put NASDAQ on-chain," but now it has become "you are the chain of meme coins." Then the community starts saying, "Your current positioning is to create meme coins, you can't change it until you die." If you no longer want to play this role, others will say you are no longer important. This reminds me of that robot in "Rick and Morty" that exists solely to pass butter—"This is your mission."
Haseeb: Robert, what do you think about this matter?
Robert: As an application developer, I actually don't care at all about what the "philosophy" of Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, or any chain is. What I care about is: what can I do on this chain? What DeFi applications are available? What is the throughput like? Are the transaction costs high? Is the ecosystem well-integrated?
As for moral judgments, they are completely unimportant to me, and I don't pay much attention to what Vitalik says. I think this matter itself is not that relevant, and can even be said to be trivial.
Haseeb: So you think the "overreaction" to Vitalik's remarks is actually a performance?
Robert: To some extent, yes. Especially for those who are not building projects, they don't have much real work to do, so they can only create discussions around these controversial topics. We have seen this situation many times.
Haseeb: Indeed, those who are truly engaged in entrepreneurship have much more to worry about. Vitalik posted a "somewhat unpalatable" post on Forecaster; that is hardly a big issue. If you are troubled by such matters every day, it indicates that you have many more important things you are not doing.
Evaluation and Understanding of Vitalik's "Loyalty to Ideals and Not Catering to the Market"
Haseeb: From a personal perspective, I actually have a lot of respect for Vitalik's consistency. This is not a recent change in his stance; he has always been a "missionary" type of person. From the founding of Ethereum, this has been an ideological idealistic project for him, and it still is today.
Many people are disappointed in him because they hope he would take on a role more like that of an "entrepreneur" or "politician." But Vitalik has not followed the path of someone like Obama, who went from being a community organizer in Chicago to a Democratic leader and then to the President of the United States. Many would say, "Look, he speaks completely differently now than he did back then." In contrast, Vitalik has never become the "President of Ethereum"; he has never abandoned his early beliefs because of the project's success. He hasn't deleted his early blog posts, nor has he transformed into Ethereum's cheerleader, solely focused on "how to make the price go up."
Many others in the Ethereum ecosystem have indeed changed after their projects succeeded, but Vitalik has not. I respect his consistency. He would say the same thing five years ago, he says it now, and he might still say it five years from now. He insists that Ethereum should serve a specific ideology, rather than being "just something to make money with."
I think it's like a country's president saying, "I believe casinos are bad for society, and we should reduce their number." You might counter that lotteries and casinos bring huge revenue to the government. But he would say, "I know, but I still think it's bad." He has the right to think this way and the qualification to express it. I respect that.
Haseeb: In short, I understand why some people are dissatisfied with Vitalik's statements, but I believe this largely comes from a "misunderstanding." They view Vitalik as the CEO of Ethereum rather than a philosopher who prioritizes ideology.
To me, he is more like Geoffrey Hinton in the crypto industry (the "godfather" of artificial intelligence). He is a source of ideas, but you don't have to take what he says as law, nor do you need to seek his endorsement.
If you look at the projects that Vitalik has publicly supported on Twitter, many have not achieved particularly great success. What he says does not determine market direction. Vitalik is Vitalik; he can say whatever he wants, and I will always respect him—but that doesn't mean I should hand over my product direction to him, nor does it mean you should do so.
Tom: I really liked a tweet from Bingie in response; he said, "I'm sure Tim Berners-Lee (the father of the World Wide Web) isn't a big fan of Pornhub either. It's okay, Vitalik not liking Pump.fun doesn't matter."
Haseeb: Yes, that perfectly summarizes the situation. Vitalik is the "elder" of the crypto industry; he doesn't need to like your project, and just because he doesn't, it doesn't mean you can't survive.
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