Vitalik Buterin: You Can Disagree With Me and Still Use Ethereum

• Ethereum’s permissionless design means no single figure, not even Buterin, controls who builds on it.
• Buterin argues that true free speech protects criticism just as much as it protects the right to build.
• Like Linux, Ethereum can power opposing visions; the answer is building ecosystems around your values.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made one thing clear. Users do not need to share their opinions to use the blockchain he helped create. 

In a post on X, Buterin laid out a wide-ranging declaration of intellectual independence. He touched on everything from DeFi and AI to food preferences and date formats. The message was simple but pointed: Ethereum belongs to no one’s worldview, including his own.

Vitalik Buterin Separates Personal Views from Ethereum’s Permissionless Design

Buterin was direct in his post. He said users do not have to agree with him on DeFi, decentralized social, or privacy-preserving payments. Political disagreements are fair game, too. 

Even his lifestyle takes, like his dislike for suits and ties or his preference for YYYY-MM-DD date formatting, were listed without apology. Yet none of them, he argued, should stop anyone from using Ethereum.

This, Buterin explained, is the whole point. Permissionlessness and censorship resistance mean users are free to build on Ethereum however they choose. They don’t need his blessing. They don’t even need the Ethereum Foundation’s approval.

Criticism Is Not Censorship, Buterin Says

Buterin also addressed pushback over his habit of calling out what he terms “corposlop” applications he views as hollow or corporate in nature. He pushed back on the idea that criticism equals censorship. 

The rules of free speech, he wrote, run in both directions. He cannot shut anyone down. But he can and will speak his mind.

“I am not free to shut you down, but I am free to criticize you, much as you are free to criticize me,” Buterin wrote. He called this “the grand bargain of free speech.” 

In his view, pretending to be neutral on everything is not a virtue. The world needs people willing to state their principles clearly, even by calling out things that contradict those principles.

Ethereum’s Decentralized Protocol vs. Personal Principles

Buterin drew a firm line between protocol neutrality and personal neutrality. Protocols like HTTP, Bitcoin, and Ethereum should be neutral. 

Individuals should not be, he argued. People with real values will naturally form views on what gets built, not just how the protocol works, but what sits on top of it.

He used Linux as a parallel. Linux is a tool of user freedom, yet it powers much of the world’s most centralized corporate software. 

The solution, Buterin argued, is not to abandon Linux but to build a full ecosystem that reflects the values that made Linux worth caring about. Ethereum, he suggested, works the same way. Multiple visions can coexist on the same base layer. That’s the point.

The post stirred conversation across crypto circles. Some read it as a defense of Buterin’s right to have opinions without being branded a centralizing force. 

Others saw it as a rebuttal to critics who had accused him of wielding influence while hiding behind the shield of decentralization. Either way, Buterin made his position hard to misread. Ethereum is open to everyone. His opinions are his own. And he plans to keep sharing them.

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