Vitalik is reported to have taken a bolder position by urging the larger cryptocurrency community and blockchain technologists in stepping out of their cocoons to embracing a global impact-driven approach to their contributions in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. He gave this speech during the RadicalxChange Conference held in Detroit on Sunday the 25th of March 2019 with economist Glen Weyl, co-author of the book “Radical Markets,” which staunchly promotes the rethinking of markets from a rather radicalized liberal perspective as the solution and better alternative to neoreaction, populism, and protectionism.

Buterin in the conference speaking said “One of the properties of this early cypherpunk tradition is this very strong individualistic mindset. Basically, this [cypherpunk] idea that it’s you, personally, making the decision … to switch from being part of the old world to being part of the new world. And the new world is on the internet—nobody knows you’re a dog.”

One can easily understand why Buterin holds this view, especially with the existence of the Bitcoin Maximalists of this world claiming nothing other than bitcoin, is authentic and every other innovative work that has been piloted within the realm of altcoins are not worth paying attention to. Buterin continued by saying “To this day, there are people who will disagree with me,” he continued, “People who will say things on Twitter like, ‘Oh, there is no bitcoin community, there are just a bunch of people who use the same cryptocurrency.’ And, as you can tell, I disagree with this attitude.”

With a nuanced style, Buterin narrated three periods in history which he considers vital turning points for crypto beginning with the financial crisis of 2008-2009 that ushered in the birth of bitcoin to both the bitcoin block size debate and the DAO hack and finally the 2016 wave of populist election victories in the U.S., Britain, and elsewhere arguing this was due to the failure of established social systems which have culminated to the possible emergence of “1950’s-style centrally planned statism” on the far left, and “free-market capitalism with slightly more welfare” among centrists blatantly trashing these approaches to be nothing other than “intellectually dead ends”.

He opines that for the community of developers within the cryptocurrency space to grow and have a meaningful politico-societal impact, money which is a fundamentally social thing in which must be thought of in a deeper sense than just two-party encrypted communication,” He argues, “You have to start thinking about governance, social contracts … commonly shared expectations in this community, how do changes get made, how do we decide how changes get made, how do we discuss things … These are all very political things.”

As reported by Breaker Mag, immediately after Buterin’s keynote, nearly two dozen adjourned to a meeting to discuss a proposal—EIP 1789—that would set aside money from Ethereum’s block reward to create some sort of development fund with  Ethereum devs considering more governance-focused blockchains including Decred and Dash as potential models. The coming months should unveil how these decisions will be attained via consensus.

With these bold ideas, Buterin is sure tackling the most burning societal issues applying his wealth of experience and as a key figure in the revolutionary impact of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology promoting a broader and societal pervading solution through technology.