Vitalik Buterin and His Dad Share Their Thoughts on the State of Crypto

Vitalik Buterin and his father have shared their opinions on the Terra collapse and the general state of the crypto market. 

Vitalik, co-founder of Ethereum, and his father, Dmitry, sat down with Fortune to talk about the reversal of fortunes in both crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi). 

Both father and son revealed that they were used to wild swings of crypto and are confident of a bull run in the future.

“Crypto has had ups before, and it has had downs before, and it will have ups and downs again,” said Vitalik. “The down periods are certainly challenging, though they are also often the periods where the most meaningful projects get nurtured and built.”

His father, Dmitry noted that “life is cyclical” like crypto while Vitalik remains bullish that “the Ethereum ecosystem will continue becoming a more mature and successful blockchain ecosystem that is ready to meet the hopes and dreams that millions of people have for the crypto space over the next decade.”

On Terra’s implosion, Vitalik stated that it was a “healthy” moment to remind investors that the “downsides are real”. He added that it could be seen as a “morally clarifying moment” to gauge the character of people to you during the good times and bad times. 

For Dmitriy, he hoped that the Terra crash would not lead to the proscription of cryptocurrencies as there are “lessons that can keep moving us forward.”

The upsides

Despite the recent market downturn, both father and son pointed to multiple upsides to the technology. Dmitriy was particularly impressed with how Ukraine used crypto to raise money for its defense against Russia’s invasion. 

“Often in the West, sometimes even the proponents view it as this kind of gambling thing for rich people subconsciously,” said Vitalik. “But in places like Argentina, people who live and use it there, to a lot of them, it’s a lifeline.” 

He added that the experimentation with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are ingenious uses of crypto.

Vitalik’s move into blockchain

The Ethereum’s co-founder’s interest in crypto was stoked by his father, a computer scientist. According to the interview, Dmitriy first learned about bitcoin from a podcast and found it fascinating. “I was happy that Vitalik was [curious],” said Dmitriy. 

In Dec 2013, Vitalik had already taken a significant leap in understanding blockchain by writing the Ethereum white paper.

Dmitry introduced Vitalik to programming from a young age after the pair moved to Canada from Russia. 

At three, he was already showing proficiency in math and numbers after learning from his grandfather, says Dmitry.