TechFlow news, on December 15, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to a tweet by X user @yishan asking "reply with things you once strongly believed in but changed your mind about after learning more." He said: I no longer focus on mathematics and cryptographic protocols the way I did ten years ago. Now I mostly use math to make rough initial estimates and try to avoid worst-case scenarios, rather than explaining average-case behaviors.
Vitalik also noted his waning interest in economics, writing: During the first five years in the crypto space, I spent a lot of time trying to invent governance mechanisms that were mathematically provable as optimal, only to eventually realize that what I was seeking was unachievable. The most important variables determining whether flawed existing systems succeed or fail in practice—often the degree of coordination among subgroups of participants, but also factors like "culture"—were variables I hadn't modeled or considered at the time.
