Vitalik Buterin Claims He Isn’t Leaving Ethereum

An article from MIT Technology Review, published last Thursday, shocked the crypto community with the headline: “Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin says his creation can’t succeed unless he takes a step back”. Soon, many news websites reported that Buterin was going to leave the Ethereum project. Not true, according to the man himself. 

An interesting interview between Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and the MIT Technology Review at the Ethereum Devcon4 conference was used to create quite a stir in the market this week. After the interview, the MIT Technology Review published a popular article titled: “Vitalik Buterin says his creation can’t succeed unless he takes a step back.”

In the interview, Buterin shares his view that Ethereum can only be truly decentralized if it stops depending on him. Something that Buterin already stated many times before. The article from the MIT Technology Review, however, implicated that Buterin was about to step down soon.

Short after the article got published, Bitcoin price analyst Tone Vays accused Buterin of “getting ready to pull a Dan Larimer”. With the remark, Vays refers to the fact that Dan Larimer, the creator of BitShares, Steemit, and EOS, has been criticized many times for easily leaving projects behind and moving onto different ventures.

Looks like @VitalikButerin is getting ready to pull a @DanLarimer. Exited!!. People continue to NOT understand what a Decentralized #Blockchain is & why #Bitcoin does NOT compete w/ nonsense like #Ethereum $ETH or #EOS $EOS, it compets w/ $USD $EUR $GOLDhttps://t.co/DM1KsqUp2r

— Tone Vays – TheFinancialSummit.com (@ToneVays) November 2, 2018

Buterin quickly responded on Twitter:

1. I am not leaving. No plans to stop or reduce blog posts / ethresearch posts / github commits.
2. Vitalik is "in charge": ETH is centralized! Vitalik is not "in charge": Vitalik is pulling a Dan Larimer! This is why BTC maximalists have zero credibility.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 2, 2018

From there, Vays followed-up by asking Buterin if he is saying the headline and subheadlines in the article are inaccurate. Buterin responded:

Umm…. this is MSM we're talking about. So, yes.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 2, 2018

Giving a bit more information, Buterin said:

Actually, the subheadline is fine.

> At Ethereum’s annual developer conference, its founder tells us why his technology can only be truly decentralized if it stops depending on him.

"Ethereum stops depending on me" is the correct emphasis. But very far away from me leaving.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 2, 2018

It seems that MIT’s article has been a bit misleading with these headlines and that Buterin will not be “stepping back” from Ethereum. Not for now, at least.

Buterin has spoken about detaching himself from the Ethereum project before. As recently as last month, he suggested that it was “already in progress.” Vitalik is still actively involved in Ethereum development, although he is deliberately attempting to reduce his prominence. Clearly, it is not healthy for the fate of an entire platform to rest in the hands of one person.