This is so interesting ...
There are several things that he says that he has to agree with, that obviously aren't satire. I think @And1 is right that the release on today is likely just to give him plausible deniability for showing support of another asset, which he would get skewered for ... it'd kind of be like Tim Cook admitting he occasionally uses an Android phone.
I personally feel that Vitalik is both thoughtful and well intended (even if I don't agree with everything he ends up being associated with) so this can't all be satire, right?
  1. What if Bitcoin maximalists actually deeply understand that they are operating in a very hostile and uncertain world where there are things that need to be fought for, and their actions, personalities and opinions on protocol design deeply reflect that fact?
  2. The key property to have in a robust and defensible technology stack is a focus on simplicity and deep mathematical purity: a 1 MB block size, a 21 million coin limit, and a simple Nakamoto consensus proof of work mechanism that even a high school student can understand. The protocol design must be easy to justify decades and centuries down the line; the technology and parameter choices must be a work of art.
  3. The second ingredient is the culture of uncompromising, steadfast minimalism. This must be a culture that can stand unyieldingly in defending itself against corporate and government actors trying to co-opt the ecosystem from outside, as well as bad actors inside the crypto space trying to exploit it for personal profit, of which there are many.
I recommend reading his other posts too... there are often interesting and solid points that helped me understand some topic. I especially liked the one on the classes of decentralization ("Trust Models")
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This might be an example of poe’s law and we are all just too “in it”
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Theory: he saw the Terra/Luna buying Bitcoin news and had an existential crisis. The great thing about Ethereum is that it's always got to fight like 100x harder to keep that #2 slot, NFTs have lost their novelty. What's next? More Crowdfunding (ICOs, IEOs, whatever), Privacy, stablecoins? Anyway, better to take the pressure directly off of the already busy af Bitcoin devs. Unpopular opinion: Eth is good for Bitcoin.
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I feel obligated to add that I feel like his incentives (social as well as financial) have the effect of making him hard to distinguish from someone un-well-intended given the results ... even if I think he intends to not do harm.
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