Vitalik Buterin responds to criticism that Ethereum ‘doesn’t care’ about DeFi

Vitalik Buterin addresses accusations of neglecting DeFi, defending his views on decentralized finance and the importance of sustainability and core principles of the Ethereum ecosystem.

The Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has spent some time responding to accusations over the weekend that he “doesn’t care” about decentralized finance.

These viewpoints began to particularly populate crypto social media spaces over the past weekend as Kain Warwick, the inventor behind the concept of yield farming, made an appearance on a popular crypto online talk show on Aug. 23.

Defense of DeFi

The show hosts prompted a conversation based on an older post on X from Warwick that complained about the recognition of DeFi’s role in the Ethereum ecosystem by the Ethereum Foundation (EF).

Warwick said those posts came out of “years of frustration.” Although he loves Vitalik and called him an “incredible person who has done incredible things,” he said he’s not a maxi and doesn’t think he is infallible — particularly in his stance on DeFi. 

“One of the most critical things that he’s gotten wrong over the last five years is the importance of DeFi.”  

He said Vitalik’s language surrounding DeFi has been equivalent to “stop doing DeFi,” which has harbored a sense of frustration from the DeFi community. “Stop discouraging the main use case of the chain,” Warwick stressed. 

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“If you’re neutral, you’re basically anti-DeFi at this point.”

The day following the publication of the episode Warwick posted a meme to his X account that once more poked at the EF and its acknowledgment of the DeFi community. 

Among those who agreed with Warwick is one user who said that the value of the Ethereum network and DeFi is mutually exclusive.

Silence broken

One X post in the recent buzz on the topic was enough to catch the attention of the Ethereum co-founder and prompted a response. 

User MilliΞ said that this stance on DeFi “almost feels hard to believe.” They argued that it almost comes off as “ironic to shill something like USDC (which literally undermines ETH as an SoV and the neutrality of the chain) and ask for less DeFi (the thing that lends the most value to ETH) in the same breath.”

Buterin took the opportunity to write a clear response to the accusations, reaffirming his long-standing views on DeFi. He emphasized his desire to see applications that are both useful and sustainable while also upholding the core principles of the network—permissionlessness and decentralization.

“I think DEXes are great, and I use them every week. I think decentralized stablecoins (eg. RAI) are great. I think Polymarket is great. I think USDC is less great than RAI, but as a practical matter we simply have to respect that it’s incredibly convenient and lots of people use it.”

On the contrary, he said he does not respect “things whose attractiveness comes from some temporary source that has no sustainability.” 

He gave the example of feeling “no excitement” toward the liquidity farming craze of 2021 because, in his words, “it was obvious that it came from token issuances that are fundamentally temporary.”

Buterin highlighted that intersections between decentralized finance and other decentralized technologies will be “very important” in the future because DeFi alone is not enough. 

The spat about Buterin’s DeFi principles comes as the Ethereum Foundation sent around 35,000 Ether (ETH) worth around $96 million to a wallet identified as a Kraken exchange deposit address on Aug. 23 at 5:26 pm UTC. 

Initially sparking an online debate about the wallet activity, the EF’s executive director clarified that it was part of “treasury management activities.”

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