Vitalik remains indifferent to the fluctuation of Ethereum prices

Recently, the price of Ethereum has been continuously dropping, and many users on social media are calling for Vitalik to take action. However, as the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik seems not to be particularly concerned about the fluctuation of ETH's price.

On March 29, Vitalik published two blog posts, from which we can gain insight into his current thoughts.

The Year Wheel Model of Culture and Politics

Vitalik proposed a "political and cultural year wheel model" to explain the differences in societal attitudes towards new and old things:

• How an era treats new things depends on the prevailing attitudes and incentive mechanisms at that time.
• The way to deal with old things is mainly influenced by the current bias.

Each period adds a new ring to the "tree", shaping people's attitudes towards new things. These boundaries will soon be fixed and hard to change, while new rings begin to grow, influencing the perceptions of the next wave of topics.

This model can explain some seemingly contradictory phenomena:

• The United States does have a trend of loosening regulations, but it was mainly evident in the 1990s. Since the 21st century, the overall trend has shifted towards strengthening regulations.
• The level of taxation is mainly constrained by budgetary demands, which were established 50 years ago.
• Attitudes towards emerging technological activities are stricter than those towards traditional hazardous activities, as the latter have existed for a long time.
• Social media matured in the 2010s, being regarded as part of the internet, but also having its own uniqueness.
• Artificial intelligence rose in the 2020s, and the competitive landscape between China and the United States prompted China to adopt an open-source strategy.

This model suggests that changing established cultural attitudes is difficult. A more effective approach is to invent new behavioral patterns and work to establish good norms in new areas. This is also the appeal of the cryptocurrency space—it offers a relatively independent technological and cultural foundation to try new things without being overly constrained by existing biases.

Transitioning from Public Goods Funding to Open Source Funding

Vitalik has long been concerned about the funding of public goods. In digital ecosystems, especially in decentralized systems, public goods are extremely important. However, the concept of "public goods" faces challenges:

1. Easily confused with "government-produced products".
2. Considered to lack rigor, leaning towards social gaming experts.

As an alternative, Vitalik suggested focusing on the concept of "open source":

• Many core digital public goods are open source, such as academic research, documentation tutorials, open source software, etc.
• "Open Source" has a clear and widely accepted definition.
• In the cryptocurrency field, the definition of open source can be appropriately expanded to include open standards, internal attack testing, and other content.

Although "open source" and "public goods" are different, they overlap significantly in the digital realm. For public goods in physical space, the most effective provision methods on a global scale often involve open research and development.

Therefore, shifting the focus from "public goods" to "open source" may be a better choice. This does not mean that all open source projects are worth supporting, but rather that we should build and open source the projects that are most valuable to humanity. Distinguishing which projects are worth supporting remains the main task of the public goods funding mechanism.