Vitalik's View: Don't Overly Focus on ETH Price

Recently, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published two blog posts that attracted widespread attention. From these articles, it appears that Vitalik does not seem too concerned about the short-term price fluctuations of ETH.

The Theory of Cultural and Political Cycles

Vitalik proposed a "ring model" to explain the changes in culture and politics. He believes:

• How a culture treats new things depends on the prevailing attitudes and incentive mechanisms of a specific period.
• The way we treat old things is mainly influenced by the bias of the current situation.

Each era adds a new "ring" to society, shaping people's attitudes towards new things. Once these boundaries are established, they are difficult to change, and a new ring begins to grow, influencing the next wave of topics.

Vitalik used this model to analyze some phenomena:

• In the 1990s, the United States did have a trend of deregulation, but in the 21st century, it has shifted towards strengthening regulation.
• Taxation is primarily determined by the demand for healthcare benefits, and the "red line" in this regard was established 50 years ago.
• Social media matured in the 2010s, being seen as part of the internet while also treated as a unique entity.
• When AI emerged in the 2020s, China adopted an open-source strategy to catch up with the United States.

Vitalik believes that it is difficult to change the cultural attitudes towards existing things. It is easier to invent new patterns of behavior and strive to establish good norms. This is also one of the attractions of the crypto space - it provides an independent technological and cultural foundation to do new things.

From "Public Goods" to "Open Source"

Vitalik has been following how to fund public goods for a long time. However, he points out that the term "public goods" has issues:

1. Often misunderstood as "government-produced products".
2. It is considered that funding lacks rigor and is easily influenced by social games.

As an alternative, Vitalik suggests following the concept of "open source":

• Most digital public goods are open source.
• "Open source" has a clear and widely recognized definition.
• In the field of cryptocurrency, this definition can be slightly expanded to include open standards, internal attack testing, etc.

For tangible public goods, Vitalik believes that the most effective way to provide them globally often involves open source - such as research on clean air.

Vitalik concluded that shifting the focus from "public goods" to "open source" is a better choice. Open source does not mean "building any open source project is equally noble", but rather that we should build and open source what is most valuable to humanity.

These views indicate that Vitalik is more focused on long-term technological development and social change rather than short-term price fluctuations.