Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin used his keynote at EthCC to deliver a powerful reminder to blockchain developers: build for liberation, not just innovation.
Drawing parallels to the early internet era, Buterin warned the crypto industry not to repeat the mistakes of Web2.
Recalling the libertarian spirit of the 1990s internet — once championed by digital rights figures like John Perry Barlow — Buterin said that ethos was eventually lost to corporate control and censorship. Today’s Web3 founders, he argued, must avoid becoming the next generation of “freedom advocates turned gatekeepers.”
“Are you making your users more free?” Buterin asked the audience, urging developers to view cryptographic tools not just as technical achievements but as instruments with moral weight and societal impact.
He cautioned that as blockchain ecosystems grow more sophisticated and attract institutional backing, there’s a risk of sacrificing decentralization for comfort, and freedom for growth. The spirit of the cypherpunk movement — rooted in privacy, resistance to censorship, and building parallel systems — is under pressure from increasing government and corporate involvement in the space.
This tension has created a growing divide within the crypto world: those preserving the original anti-establishment ideals versus “suitcoiners,” or institutional players focused on financial upside.
Buterin’s message was clear — if Web3 is to succeed on its own terms, its builders must stay vigilant, not just about what they’re building, but why they’re building it.
