Vitalik Buterin Urges Social Values in Ethereum App Development

Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Apps Must Reflect Strong Social Values

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin had some words to share recently on what truly counts for Ethereum's future—and it's not only the tech. In a Warpcast, a decentralized social platform, He indicated that Ethereum's application layer—where individuals develop decentralized apps (dApps)—requires a robust "social philosophy" above everything else.

What Is the Application Layer?

It's where developers construct things such as wallets, marketplaces, and social platforms utilizing Ethereum's technology. Vitalik Buterin feels that it is here where ideas and values are most important. He illustrated that what gets constructed in terms of apps, and how apps act, rests significantly on what developers think Ethereum ought to be doing for the world. "Applications are 80% special purpose," he stated. What you develop is a subject of what you believe Ethereum is for. That is why you need to get the right ideas in place."

It's Not Just About the Code

To illustrate this, He likened Ethereum to a programming language like C++. He stated that even if C++ were developed by someone with dangerous ideologies, the language itself likely wouldn't be altered much—it's a general-purpose tool. But Ethereum, he contended, is not.

Ethereum's Layer 1 (base layer) is still partially driven by philosophy. For instance, the transition from energy-consuming mining to energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) indicates that the team is concerned with the environment and decentralization. Light clients and account abstraction are also in favor of such values. Therefore, though the base layer is roughly 50% general-purpose, the application layer is where belief holds a larger share.

Good vs Bad Social Philosophy

Vitalik didn't merely speak in theory—he provided actual examples. He complimented apps such as:

• Railgun, a privacy-oriented crypto protocol

• Farcaster, a decentralized social media platform

• Polymarket, a prediction market

• Signal, a private messaging app

He explained that these apps attempt to "do the right thing behind the scenes by default." Although some, such as Signal, are imperfect, they still adhere to a good social philosophy.

Conversely, Buterin condemned platforms such as:

• Pump.fun, a memecoin platform

• Terra (LUNA), which crashed spectacularly

• FTX, a failed crypto exchange

Vitalik Buterin thinks these applications did not have a defined purpose or had negative intentions. In his view, the issues in these applications originated from the wrong concepts in the minds of the developers regarding what they were attempting to do.

Why It Matters

The message by Vitalik Buterin is direct: good code is valuable, but good values are more so—particularly when it comes to constructing the applications people use daily. He'd like the Ethereum community to deeply consider what they're constructing and why.

As Eth expands, Buterin hopes that the next generation of developers will be interested not only in profit or hype but in building apps that benefit the world positively.