Why Vitalik Buterin Chose Transparency Over Anonymity in Building Ethereum

Buterin explains how context, openness, and advancements in blockchain shape Ethereum's future with scalability, security, and decentralization.

Why Vitalik Buterin Chose Transparency Over Anonymity in Building Ethereum
Why Vitalik Buterin Chose Transparency Over Anonymity in Building Ethereum

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explained in an episode of The Network State podcast why, unlike Satoshi Nakamoto, he did not create the blockchain platform anonymously. Buterin said the decision stemmed from the peculiarities of that time.

Buterin was 19 when he started working on Ethereum in 2013. He admitted that he hadn't thought about anonymity, partly due to inexperience and eagerness.

I was just a passionate developer with an idea and didn't think about hiding my identity, he explained.

However, the main reason was the desire to make the platform open to everyone, including developers and investors.

Publicity helped. It was easier for me because I could speak at conferences, convey the essence of Ethereum, and build trust. Anonymity could have prevented the community from gathering in the early stages, Buterin noted.

He also highlighted the difference in context. When Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin in 2008, cryptocurrencies were new and risky, and the government's response was unclear.

By 2013, the blockchain had become more understandable; the Ethereum founder said he was able to build the platform without worrying about potential risks.

How can Ethereum be made even better?

During the conversation, Buterin emphasized that the two main goals of the project remain scalability and utility, and a clear technical roadmap will help achieve them.

Ethereum, broadly speaking, has two guiding stars. One is to be a widely used and scalable platform. The other is to remain truly valuable, meaning it's significantly more secure and decentralized than the systems that people would use instead, he said.

According to the programmer, if the platform cannot process millions of transactions or becomes similar to traditional finance, it will lose its value.

To scale, Ethereum is developing L1 and L2 solutions. At the first level, developers are implementing preliminary block confirmation, access lists, and decentralized data storage. At the second level, they are increasing the number of BLOB-objects, using PeerDAS and technologies such as ZK-SNARKs and STARKs for transaction proofs. These technologies enable processing millions of transactions per second while maintaining the security of the network.

Buterin noted the limitations of Bitcoin's early ideas that Nakamoto did not fully consider:

The main thing that I think Satoshi didn't fully understand was the asymmetry between creation and verification.

In the network of the first cryptocurrency, creating and verifying blocks require equal effort. However, technologies like ZK-SNARKs and data sampling allow the builder nodes to do the main work, simplifying verification for others. This reduces the load and makes the network accessible to more users.

An example of failure is the use of custodial wallets in the Lightning Network in El Salvador, which reduced decentralization. Buterin proposed a hub model:

The solution is a hub model, where a small number of powerful nodes concentrate the work of generating proofs, while verification remains widely distributed.

L2 rollups perform computations outside the main blockchain but prove them on L1, providing the same guarantees. Data sampling allows the chain to be verified by downloading only a portion of the information, increasing scalability without losing decentralization.

We are committed to continuing to move forward, making Ethereum better, more accessible, more secure, and more useful for everyone, Buterin concluded.