The launch of Ethereum almost seven years ago and its development in subsequent years birthed a whole ecosystem that has seen massive growth.
One of the biggest creations, thus far, has been non-fungible tokens. These tokens taking the form of digital art, have made headlines over the last dozen months thanks to the many high-profile individuals and popular brands that have jumped on the bandwagon.
That’s not even the half of it – the users getting into the NFT space have shelled out big money to purchase these virtual items. This has raised questions among industry experts, the blockchain community and even government authorities around the world.
In a recent interview with TIME, Ethereum’s chief Vitalik Buterin shared his view on the subject. His remarks on the matter were, however, misinterpreted by many compelling the ‘the Prince of Crypto’ to clarify the matter. Here are the details:
‘$3 million monkeys’ makes Ethereum a ‘different kind of bet’
Two things are clear for Buterin when it comes to Ethereum. First, the open-source smart contracts blockchain can and ought to be tapped for positive outcomes in the real world. Two, NFTs aren’t it.
In the TIME interview, the Russian-Canadian programmer criticized NFT projects that are only focused on financial gains. Buterin didn’t categorically mention the Bored Apes Yacht Club collection, but it was almost clear that the million-dollar monkey JPEGs were the subject of the talk.
“The danger is that you have these $3 million monkeys and that becomes a different kind of bet,“ the Ethereum co-founder, who has previously appeared on the TIME magazine, said.
Buterin was named one of the most influential people of 2021 by TIME
Crypto aid to Ukraine is a better representation of what Ethereum can achieve
Buterin referenced the crypto donations to Ukraine as a beneficial and positive use of crypto. The developer, who has been vocal about the Ukraine invasion by Russia, called out his native country’s leader Vladimir Putin on Twitter, asking him to abandon military action and instead pursue a peaceful approach to arrive at an amicable solution.
“One positive aspect of the situation over the past three weeks is that it has reminded many people in the crypto market that, ultimately, the purpose of cryptocurrencies is not to play with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it is to do things that achieve meaningful results, in the real world.”
Buterin indicated, during the TIME interview, that he fervently believes Ethereum should be used for only good even if that won’t sit right with people.
“I’d rather Ethereum offend some people than turn into something that doesn’t mean anything.”
The comments made by Buterin triggered many reactions on Twitter that he responded to one of the tweets captioned, “welcome to ape hate vitalik.”
The ‘Prince of Crypto’ doesn’t detest BAYC NFTs
Replying to the post from Coin Center’s Neeraj Agrawal, director of communications, yesterday, the Ethereum chief wrote, “I don’t hate apes, I just want them to fund public goods!”
Buterin previously discussed the ‘general purpose infrastructure for funding public goods’ in the 80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin.
Bored Ape Yacht Collection has been in the spotlight over the last few days in relation to its creator.
Yuga Labs, the firm behind the collection, has made major plays in the NFT marketspace this month. The software company, last week, completed the acquisition of some of Larva Labs’ NFT IPs. It now has under its umbrella the Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, and Meebits collections.
Yesterday, the NFT maker also announced it had bagged $450 million at a $4 billion valuation from an Andreessen Horowitz-led seeding round. The massive funding for the Miami-based NFT start-up follows the recent launch of the ApeCoin token – a cryptocurrency project the firm’s founders are invested in.
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