In one of the fastest monetized sectors of influence, keeping up with various Alpha bloggers’ and KOLs’ endorsement tweets has become a crucial skill for ordinary retail investors deep in the Web3 world to uncover wealth-building opportunities.

So, who currently holds the title of the most influential “influencer” in the crypto world?

While the following KOL endorsement chart may not be entirely precise, placing Vitalik Buterin in a league of his own is remarkably accurate—being the undisputed authority in the Ethereum ecosystem, Vitalik seldom directly promotes projects, but every word and action he makes has a significant market-moving impact.

A recent example is the soaring valuation of ENS due to Vitalik’s endorsement. Therefore, this article aims to review projects and technological directions historically endorsed by Vitalik Buterin, exploring their development, current status, and attempting to summarize the reasons behind his endorsements and how they have influenced and shaped the Ethereum ecosystem as we see it today.

Open “Preference” for ENS

Saying that Vitalik “has a preference” for ENS is by no means an exaggeration. He openly stated in an interview that “Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is the most successful non-financial Ethereum application to date.”

As we all know, ENS, launched in 2017, stands for Ethereum Name Service. It is a distributed domain name service based on Ethereum. Through its unique bidding mechanism, any user can register one or more Ethereum domains ending with “.eth” for their Ethereum address through a bidding process.

Simply put, ENS can map a user’s long and difficult-to-remember “0x” Ethereum address to a custom short address, such as satoshi.eth or vitalik.eth. This means that in wallets supporting ENS, users no longer need to copy and paste long addresses. They can directly use ENS domains to bind various cryptocurrency addresses and receive cryptocurrency payments.

Moreover, Vitalik’s Twitter account nickname has always been “vitalik.eth,” which serves as a long-term free advertisement for ENS and indirectly shows his support for it.

Since the beginning of this year, Vitalik has actively promoted ENS, visibly impacting its market price in the secondary market.

First, on January 3rd, Vitalik shared ENS’s Layer 2 data parsing solution and tweeted, “All L2s should run on the CCIP resolver so we can register, update, and read ENS subdomains directly on L2. ENS is very important, and it needs to be affordable.” Following this, ENS saw a surge of over 30% within five minutes, breaking through the 12 USDT mark.

Then, on May 21st, another dramatic endorsement for ENS occurred. During a discussion on sequencers and intents, Vitalik used ENS as an example to emphasize his views on cross-L2 standards and infrastructure. He highlighted three critical changes: token transfers, ENS, and smart contract wallets (both personal and organizational). He stated:

“We need an open, decentralized protocol to quickly transfer assets from one L2 to another and integrate it into the default send page of wallets. Key changes in token transfers, ENS, and smart contract wallets are simple to implement on L1 but challenging on L2. Light clients, basic reliability, and proof systems are also more secure and decentralized on L1, while significantly lacking on L2.”

Overall, since January 3rd, ENS has risen from $8 to a peak of $30, nearly a 300% increase.

What else has Vitalik “called out”?

Apart from ENS, there are many other projects/technologies that Vitalik has historically endorsed:

• Plasma

First, there’s Plasma. Once Vitalik’s most highly regarded Ethereum scaling solution, it is now rarely mentioned, and most new users have never heard of it. In August 2017, Vitalik and Joseph Poon co-authored the initial concept of Plasma—a set of off-chain scaling solutions. Plasma aimed to offload data and computation (except for deposits, withdrawals, and Merkle roots) from the Ethereum main chain to execute off-chain. The main chain would periodically store key state data to ensure security using Ethereum’s main chain. However, Plasma couldn’t solve the data withholding problem and wasn’t suitable for migrating contract states to L1. Consequently, it was replaced by the new Ethereum scaling direction represented by Rollups. Today, Rollups have almost become the only mainstream option for Ethereum scaling. It’s worth noting that since Rollups rely heavily on data availability on the main chain, and Plasma completely bypasses the data availability issue and greatly reduces transaction fees, Plasma’s popularity has started to recover. Late last year, Vitalik published articles like “Exit games for EVM validiums: the return of Plasma,” viewing Plasma as a method to improve chain scalability using zkSync and StarkNet. This has led to a reassessment of Plasma’s ability to minimize data availability constraints, suggesting that Plasma may play an important role in enhancing Ethereum network performance in the future.

• RAI

In the stablecoin field, Vitalik has written about his views on stablecoin design, categorizing them into three types: centralized stablecoins, DAO-governed real-world asset-backed stablecoins, and minimally governed cryptocurrency-backed stablecoins.

The first two are represented by USDT/USDC and DAI, respectively. For the third category, Vitalik specifically introduced RAI’s model, praising it for avoiding all ties to the non-cryptocurrency financial system, making it harder to attack.

Vitalik has also stated in public events that he believes RAI’s rise could address the issue of Lido dominating the LSD ecosystem. He remarked, “RAI’s radical governance might not need to go all the way; if the RAI community takes a more proactive governance approach to support staking ETH and intentionally only accepts non-dominant forms of staking ETH, that would be sufficient.”

As of the time of writing, on-chain data shows that the total supply of RAI is only 1.65 million, which is almost negligible in the stablecoin market.

• SIWE、POAP、SBT

How to Prove Your Identity in the Web3 World?

Vitalik Buterin once wrote that ENS (Ethereum Name Service) and similar systems help build an ecosystem centered around identity. He stated, “Blockchains are valuable for identity applications because they operate independently of institutions.” In addition to ENS, Vitalik also sees SIWE, POAP, and SBT as key components in constructing an on-chain identity system:

Sign In With Ethereum (SIWE): This standard allows Web3 users to log into traditional websites using their on-chain accounts.

POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol): Used to issue tokens that represent proof of attendance.

Soulbound Tokens (SBT): Vitalik highlighted in the article “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul,” these tokens are becoming a practical vehicle for digital identity in Web3. SBTs can provide proof of outcomes, trace on-chain activities, record participation processes, and are permanent and non-transferable, laying the foundation for a comprehensive one-to-one Web3 identity system.

From this perspective, the core of SBTs is to establish a native Web3 identity system for each Web3 user from scratch. This system can extend beyond DeFi and NFTs to diversify new application scenarios within Web3.

However, despite the initial hype around Web3 social applications, SBTs are currently just a representative proof of decentralized identity and have yet to see large-scale on-chain adoption.

• DVT (Distributed Validator Technology)

On December 28, 2023, Vitalik discussed how to manage the massive signature load on the Ethereum network without compromising decentralization. He proposed using DVT to create decentralized staking pools.

DVT allows multiple nodes to act as a single Ethereum PoS validator, significantly enhancing security and decentralization. In November 2023, Lido began trialing DVT solutions, supported by Obol Network and SSV Network, to implement a distributed validator network.

• Loopring/Taiko

Vitalik has frequently praised Loopring, one of the early representative Rollup projects, especially for its transaction performance solutions. He has mentioned that combining Rollup with sharding can horizontally scale the Ethereum network, theoretically achieving up to 160,000 transactions per second.

Recently, Taiko, a project closely related to Loopring, also received Vitalik’s recognition. On May 25, Vitalik proposed the first block on Taiko’s mainnet, stating: “I’m excited to see that Taiko is launching as a based rollup. Ethereum benefits from L2s taking a plurality of different approaches, and I appreciate them being among the first to go in this direction.”

• Farcaster

In September 2023, Vitalik’s X account was hacked, and a phishing link for claiming a ConsenSys commemorative NFT related to Proto Danksharding was posted, resulting in user losses exceeding $690,000.

Later, Vitalik confirmed on decentralized social media Farcaster that his Twitter account had indeed been compromised through a SIM swap attack. He suggested that this may have occurred because his phone number was exposed when he registered for Twitter Blue. He also stated that he had uninstalled Twitter and joined Farcaster, which allows account recovery through Ethereum addresses.

As of the time of writing, Vitalik has indeed made Farcaster his main social media platform. In the past week, he has posted more than 10 times on Farcaster but has not posted anything on X, with his latest activity there being a reply to an old post from June 11.

The secret battle over Ethereum’s “legitimacy” behind the delivery of goods

Returning to the core issue, as a highly influential public figure whose every move significantly impacts the Ethereum ecosystem and the broader Web3 world, what are the considerations behind Vitalik’s public endorsements?

The main reason is largely to maintain the “orthodoxy” of Ethereum, ensuring that its development remains on track and does not lose momentum. Vitalik is committed to outlining an ideal future where Ethereum becomes more decentralized and achieves mass adoption.

Just looking at the previously mentioned ENS, Plasma, and Taiko, we can see a clear thread of maintaining Ethereum’s DA orthodoxy:

First, Vitalik’s strong advocacy for ENS L2 data parsing solutions requires that ENS services expanded to various L2 networks must use Ethereum’s orthodox DA, meaning DA must be placed on the Ethereum mainnet, thereby excluding L2s that choose third-party DA platforms like Celestia.

Since ENS is a key component in building the Ethereum identity system, it becomes an indispensable non-financial application and infrastructure for L2s when the broader Ethereum ecosystem achieves mass adoption. By setting the standard early that “L2s wanting to deploy ENS must place DA on the Ethereum mainnet,” it increases the opportunity cost of L2s choosing third-party DA, forcing them to carefully consider which option has the higher overall cost.

Plasma’s intention is even more evident. In the context of the DA war, it completely avoids the data availability issue, significantly reducing transaction costs (further reading: “Who is Moving Ethereum’s Cheese? Opportunities Behind the 2024 Mainline Narrative“). Especially when combining Plasma with ZK zero-knowledge proofs, it proves the validity of Plasma blocks on the main chain, reducing dependency on the exit mechanism.

Finally, Taiko, as the first based Rollup project, has its core highlight in achieving Rollup expansion through L1 ordering. The ordering power (and derived ordering, MEV, and other revenue) is delegated to L1, meaning all ordering and security are provided by Ethereum L1, further enhancing the economic attractiveness and competitiveness of the Ethereum mainnet.

Every public action has its legitimate or illegitimate (private or public) interests, and Ethereum and Vitalik are no exception. When the third-party DA debate sparked by Celestia first emerged, it was clear that Vitalik had extensive experience in such struggles. The article “On the Impact of Vitalik and Various Roadmaps on Ethereum’s Governance Process” makes an interesting analogy, suggesting that Vitalik essentially plays the role of a “CTO” within the Ethereum ecosystem, ensuring that the Ethereum ship stays on course.

He is responsible for guiding Ethereum’s development process and aligning it with the planning direction of various “roadmaps,” even having the decisive power over whether the development direction aligns with Ethereum’s vision (regardless of whether he desires such “autocratic” power).

From this perspective, no matter how people joke about the differences between Vitalik and Satoshi as the founders of the two major cryptocurrencies/ecosystems, at least Vitalik is a very competent project founder. He strives to maintain Ethereum’s orthodoxy and keeps Ethereum on the right track, ensuring it does not deviate or lose speed in the competition among public chains.

Summary

Vitalik is human, not divine, and from this perspective, we can see clear answers behind all issues.

For us ordinary users, it’s enough to remember that Vitalik’s various research efforts on Ethereum often contain clues to leading new trends. Being keenly aware of these can help us sense the primary battlegrounds where future financial competition may unfold.

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