Ethereum (ETH) Needs To Make Three ‘Crucial’ Transitions To Avoid Failure, According to Vitalik Buterin

June 10, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Vitalik Buterin warns against overloading Ethereum consensus

May 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Buterin has advocated preserving Ethereum consensus minimalism and not overloading validators with other things.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a lengthy blog post warning of the dangers of “stretching” Ethereum's consensus past its core functions of validating blocks and securing the network.

Ethereum consensus is the process whereby blocks are validated by the proof-of-stake mechanism implemented in September 2022 with “the Merge.”

In a May 21 blog post titled “Don’t overload Ethereum’s consensus,” Buterin warned that using Ethereum’s network consensus for other things could bring “high systemic risks to the ecosystem and should be discouraged and resisted.”

The Ethereum co-founder was essentially promoting the preservation of the blockchain’s minimalism.

Don't overload Ethereum's consensus:https://t.co/07tzyCrZcJ
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 21, 2023

Buterin noted that over the years, a number of proposals or ideas had floated around that suggested using the Ethereum social consensus for other purposes, such as price and data oracles, re-staking initiatives and using layer-1 soft forks to recover layer-2 projects should they have issues.

“There is a natural urge to try to extend the blockchain’s core with more and more functionality because the blockchain’s core has the largest economic weight and the largest community watching it, but each such extension makes the core itself more fragile.”

Buterin said that a certain subset of these techniques could bring “high systemic risks” to the ecosystem, such as bugs or an intentional 51% attack.

Some high-risk examples include creating ETH/USD price oracles in which ETH (ETH) holders or validators can be bribed to vote on, which may result in a “fork out the bad participants' money” if there is disagreement.

However, he acknowledged a need for better oracles, proposing a case-by-case approach because various problems are “inherently so different” from each other.

Overall, Buterin said that any expansion of the “duties” of Ethereum's consensus increases the costs, complexities, and risks of running a validator.

Application-layer projects “taking actions that risk increasing the ‘scope’ of blockchain consensus to anything other than verifying the core Ethereum protocol rules,” should be treated with caution, he said, summarizing:

“We should instead preserve the chain’s minimalism, support uses of re-staking that do not look like slippery slopes to extending the role of Ethereum consensus, and help developers find alternate strategies to achieve their security goals.”

The Ethereum consensus mechanism switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in September last year. Additionally, staked Ethereum has only just been released for withdrawal with the Shapella upgrade on April 12. This explains the increased scrutiny of validator roles and security risks on the world’s largest smart contract network.

Magazine: ‘Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide

Vitalik Buterin and Indian yogi Sadhguru discuss tech, identity and more

April 25, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

In a virtual conversation hosted by the reState Foundation the two thought leaders joined together to talk about the direction of the future of technology and human consciousness.

Emerging technologies such as blockchain are ushering in a new era of interactions between humans and the digital world. This is an evolving topic of conversation for thought-leaders both inside and outside of the industry trying to predict how such technologies will prompt change in the human experience.

On April 25th the reState Foundation hosted a virtual talk between co-founder and inventor of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin and founder of the Isha Foundation, the Indian mystic Sadhguru to discuss the intersection of technology and human consciousness.

*reState Foundation, Sadhguru and Vitalik Buterin in conversation. Source: YouTube, reState Foundation*

Buterin opened the conversation by highlighting that the core of blockchain technology is about “human coordination and interaction” with one another. He said:

“[Blockchain] is about helping different groups of people come together to be able to trust each other more, to collaborate across larger distances on many different kinds of projects.”

The talk promptly continued by pointing out a growing gap between the rate of technological evolution and the progression of human ethical and consciousness development, with the latter being left behind.

An insightful conversation between @VitalikButerin and @SadhguruJV, hosted by the reState Foundation, delves into the roles of blockchains and DAOs in human coordination, and the importance of consciousness in shaping a better future. pic.twitter.com/btxTZrazxP
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) April 25, 2023

According to the Sadhguru, much of this blockage on the part of humans comes from the need to identify with a group. The yogi said this need for self-identification therefore, surrenders intelligence over to “protecting and defending the identity” of that group.

*Growing gap of technology development and human consciousness development. Source: YouTube, reState*

However, Buterin highlighted that new emerging tech actually makes it easier for people to recognize complicated identities and connect with one another on common ground. “Ultimately every technology is a social technology in some way,” he said.

“These are tools to help groups of people organize. There are tools to help people identify things that they value in common.”

He continued to say that while emerging technologies will not solve all problems of users, agreements and disagreements in the space have the potential to result in “realized cooperation” and learning opportunities, respectively. “I think those are the kinds of ideas that I know a lot of people in Ethereum and in those related communities really care about,” he said.

As these new technologies continue to take precedence in the lives of users and in systems around the world, Sadhguru encouraged listeners to be mindful that humans are the “highest level of technology” and by doing so we can improve the way we interact with technologies.

“Technology is not just something humans merely create; it is an extension of our consciousness. As we elevate our consciousness, our technology will automatically follow.”

Both speakers pointed to proper usage of technologies like blockchain as the key to its implementation as a tool for greater understanding and raising human consciousness.

Magazine: Here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can become interoperable

Ethereum (ETH) Creator Vitalik Buterin Outlines Favorite Crypto Security Strategy

March 19, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Diversified set of guardians required for safe self-custody: Vitalik Buterin

March 18, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

In a Reddit post, Buterin emphasized that having too much of a concentrated grasp of your self-custody wallets can be a bad thing if you get “hacked, coerced, or incapacitated or die.”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has emphasized the importance of having a varied set of “guardians” to maximize the safety of crypto asset self-custody via multisig and social recovery wallets.

Given the ever-growing rate of crypto scams and hacks over the past few years, and several major crypto firms going bust in 2022, the importance of self-custody and maintaining sufficient wallet safety procedures has never been more important.

In a March 16 Reddit post on the r/ethereum community titled “How I think about choosing guardians for multsig and social recovery wallets, Buterin gave a detailed run down of how he approaches wallet security.

Self-custody is important. And social recovery and multisig is a great way to do it.

A quick reddit post on how I think about choosing guardians for social recovery and multisig wallets:https://t.co/FY1iyJ6BFC
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) March 17, 2023

While their structures differ, Multisig wallets and social recovery wallets both rely on guardians, which essentially serve as external sources to recover funds or approve transactions. Generally, Guardians can be sets of external wallets belonging to the same individual, or addresses controlled by other people/entities.

According to Buterin, it’s important to decentralize wallet guardians, as owning more than one of your guardians provides a “tricky tradeoff: you get to trust other people less, but you're also concentrating more power into yourself, which can create a risk if you get hacked, coerced, or incapacitated or die.”

“My rule of thumb is that enough guardians should be controlled by other people that if you disappear there are enough other guardians left to recover your funds.”

Buterin went on to advise that someone’s set of guardians should not know of each other, as this “greatly reduces the risk that they collude” to attack their wallets and assets, however they should still be able to find each other in the case of something happening to the wallet owner.

“If something happens to you, they will still be able to find each other, because there are obvious standard protocols that naturally come to people's minds in such a situation (eg. contact your family),” he wrote.

Additionally, the Ethereum co-founder suggested that people should “instruct guardians to ask a security question” that only they and the guardian will know when confirming an operation, and only confirm when the correct answer is given.

For degen traders, or those not making long term HODL plays, the Ethereum co-founder also stressed that they should use guardians that can respond quickly to suit their fast moving needs.

“If you're doing degen stuff with on-chain contracts, you may need to act quickly: pull money out if a contract gets a vulnerability, move money around if you are close to being liquidated, etc. If your needs include this, then you want to find guardians who can act quickly on short notice.”

Finally, Buterin recommended testing each guardian at least once a year, as this will confirm that they “haven't forgotten or lost their accounts.”

Given the ever-growing rate of crypto scammers and hacks over the past few years, and several crypto firms going bust last year, the importance of maintaining sufficient wallet safety procedures has never been more important.