Vitalik’s Criteria for an Excellent Crypto Project

Asthe founder of Ethereum, every move Vitalik Buterin makes has varying degrees of impact on the cryptocurrency industry. His speeches and positions at various events are also regarded as one of the ‘industry vanes.’ It is no exaggeration to say that Vitalik Buterin is not only a pioneer of blockchain technology but also an important opinion leader in the crypto community. His views and evaluations of crypto projects often attract widespread attention.

This article will comb through Vitalik’s past statements and opinions, summarize his criteria for excellent crypto projects and the projects he advocates, helping readers to better understand the future direction of this field.

1. Innovation

Vitalik has always emphasized the importance of innovation in crypto projects. He believes that only continuous innovation can drive the development of the entire blockchain industry. Vitalik advocates for projects that have made breakthroughs in technology, such as Layer 2 scaling solutions, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and cross-chain interoperability protocols.

Layer 2 Solutions: Vitalik has repeatedly mentioned the importance of Layer 2 scaling solutions, especially Ethereum’s Rollup technology. Rollup significantly improves the network’s scalability and transaction speed by bundling a large number of transactions off-chain for execution and then submitting the results on-chain.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Vitalik considers DeFi to be an important application field of blockchain technology. Projects like Uniswap, Aave, and MakerDAO are highly regarded for their innovative financial products and services.

2. Decentralization

Decentralization is the core concept of blockchain and one of the key criteria Vitalik uses to evaluate the excellence of a project. He believes that only truly decentralized projects can ensure the security and censorship resistance of the system.

Uniswap: As a decentralized exchange, Uniswap has achieved intermediary-free trading through the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model, completely overturning the traditional centralized exchange model.

MakerDAO: MakerDAO creates and manages the decentralized stablecoin Dai through smart contracts, achieving a fully decentralized financial system and demonstrating the great potential of decentralization.

Polymarket: Polymarket is a leading project in the prediction market space. Vitalik’s support for Polymarket is evident not only through financial investment but also through his repeated endorsements:

On July 2nd, Vitalik posted, “Prediction markets and Community Notes are becoming the two flagship social cognition technologies of the 2020s. Seeking truth and democracy, they are built on public participation that is open to all rather than pre-selected elites. I want to see more technologies like these.” He also believed that “the two are very complementary.” This viewpoint was publicly endorsed by Elon Musk.

At the end of July, Vitalik once again mentioned Polymarket in his latest speech “The Next Decade of Ethereum,” emphasizing, “In 2020, I paid a transaction fee of $1,000 on Augur; today, the trading cost on Polymarket is almost zero.” He highly praised the latter’s product.

This is not the first time Vitalik has expressed his views on the prediction market track and products. As early as 2021, the year after the end of the 46th U.S. presidential election, Vitalik predicted that prediction markets would become increasingly important Ethereum applications.

It can be said that Vitalik’s insistence on ‘decentralization’ and his early anticipation of the game between culture and technology are well foreseen.

3. Community and Ecosystem

Vitalik places great importance on the community and ecosystem construction of a project. He believes that a successful crypto project must have a strong and active community, as well as a healthy ecosystem. This not only helps the development and promotion of the project but also brings more innovation and cooperation opportunities.

Ethereum: Ethereum has become a leader in the blockchain field, not only because of its strong technical foundation but also because of its large developer community and rich ecosystem. Various applications such as DeFi, NFT, and DAO are thriving on Ethereum, showing strong ecosystem vitality.

Polkadot: As a cross-chain interoperability platform, Polkadot is not only innovative in technology but also has a strong community and ecosystem, which makes it highly esteemed by Vitalik. By connecting different blockchains, Polkadot achieves cross-chain transmission of assets and information, promoting cooperation and innovation in the blockchain field.

4. Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Vitalik also emphasizes that crypto projects should be sustainable and socially responsible. He believes that only those projects committed to solving real-world problems and focusing on environmental protection, social equity, and other aspects are truly excellent.

Ethereum 2.0: Ethereum is transitioning from PoW to PoS, reducing energy consumption and achieving a more environmentally friendly blockchain operation mode. This upgrade not only improves network performance but also demonstrates Ethereum’s commitment to environmental protection.

Gitcoin: Gitcoin promotes the development and innovation of blockchain technology by funding open-source projects. At the same time, the platform also focuses on social responsibility and promotes sustainable social development by funding public welfare projects.

5. Non-Financial Applications

Vitalik’s series of “industry interrogations” proposed in 2017, compared to speculative financial applications, Vitalik pays more attention to several key issues including banking services, anti-censorship commercial transactions, practical use case Dapps, real interest rates, anti-inflation, and payment channels.

Compared to the speculative trading that everyone in the cryptocurrency field is fanatical about, he values the “usability” of cryptocurrencies, especially the Ethereum ecosystem, even more. This is also one of the reasons why “non-financial applications” like ENS (Ethereum Name Service) have been highly affirmed by Vitalik on multiple occasions — his nickname on multiple social media platforms is vitalik.eth.

Vitalik once emphasized, “ENS is our most successful non-financial application, I don’t know why more people don’t care about it!”

It can be said that ENS carries Vitalik’s expectations and hopes for “building a new type of Internet.”

Conclusion

At the end of 2013, Vitalik mentioned in the Ethereum white paper: “I suggest designing a new kind of Bitcoin. This new Bitcoin will be based on a general-purpose programming language that can be used to create a variety of applications, such as social, trading, games, and so on.” It can be said that he has always been a person who practices what he preaches, and thus the projects and products he has endorsed after the birth of Ethereum have always remained true to their original aspirations.

In Vitalik Buterin’s mind, an excellent crypto project should not only have innovative and decentralized technical features but also have a strong community and ecosystem, and be committed to sustainable development and social responsibility. These criteria point the way for the development of crypto projects and also provide important reference for investors.