Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, gives out end-of-year praise

Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian writer and programmer, most commonly known for co-founding Ethereum. As 2018 draws to a close, Vitalik has begun handing out praise on Twitter to companies, people, and technology he thinks deserve it.

“Freedom tech”

Whilst Vitalik’s list of praise isn’t exclusive to the world of crypto, he certainly mentions many positives from the cryptosphere. One positive he discusses is the Bitcoin community caring about non-cryptocurrency “freedom tech.” This point comes in response to a Robert Spigler (a Bitcoin maximalist) tweet about the Bitcoin Core Project looking into new alternative computer architectures. This is a result of popular companies like Intel and AMD using closed platforms and systems, something the world of crypto disagrees with. Many, including Vitalik, believe in open hardware/firmware.

The Lightning Network

The fourth slot on Vitalik’s list of praise goes to the Lightning Network, which has achieved remarkable growth without funding from an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). The Lightning Network has been dubbed as a potent solution to cryptocurrency scaling issues. In short, it creates a layer on top of Bitcoin that enables faster and cheaper transactions on the Bitcoin network. Coin Rivet also recently reported on the Lightning Network’s rapid growth.

The stability of fiat currency

Vitalik has even given out praise to the management of fiat currency, stating that “monetary policy is complicated.” The volatility of crypto markets showcase how difficult it is to keep currencies stable and sustainable.

Centralised applications and ‘ease of use’

Vitalik also praised centralised applications for their ease of use (including Twitter). This is particularly worth noting as whilst the prospect of decentralised applications is attractive, not all of them have easy-to-use interfaces, which is becoming a common critique. People often avoid applications that are not user friendly, and this is something developers should be focusing on.

Giving love back to the community

The cryptocurrency and blockchain community is very, very active. Many members of the community engage heavily with these topics to help demystify the space and spark healthy discussions to help improve it. Vitalik has given praise to two individuals in particular, David Gerard and Jorge Stolfi, alongside the Reddit sub-thread /r/Buttcoin. In Vitalik’s own words, they provide a “much-needed service in shedding light on the crypto space’s worst excesses, and good communities should welcome their scrutiny.”

Proof-of-work is nice and simple to explain

Proof-of-work is the original consensus algorithm used in blockchain networks. Its concept is fairly simple – the algorithm is used to confirm new transactions and add new blocks of data to the blockchain. Its aim is to provide peer-to-peer, trustless consensus between all parties that is easily verified by others. There is a lot more technical details involved in proof-of-work (PoW), but as Vitalik notes, its core concept is easily explainable.

Vitalik Buterin’s list is longer than the points detailed here, so feel free to check out his Twitter and read the entire thread.

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