Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Reveals His Biggest Regret With The Project

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has opened up about a major regret of his. His project which started just five years ago has grown to be the number 2 biggest crypto in the crypto space. But when you build a $443 billion, and counting, ecosystem, one can expect there to be a few mishaps along the way. And it seems the co-founder has had his fair share of it.

During an AMA on Twitter, Buterin answered questions from the people he followed. The questions ranged from serious questions like lessons learned to biggest regrets. Also covering non-crypto-related topics like billionaire Elon Musk asking the co-founder what is love. Buterin provided answers to these questions as they came in. In the process revealing what his biggest regret has been.

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Biggest Ethereum-Related Regret

When someone asked the co-founder what his biggest non-technical regret was with Ethereum, Buterin replied that it was having 8 co-founders. He went ahead to add that he didn’t really do his due diligence in picking these co-founders. And also did not spend an appropriate amount of time picking them.

The whole "8 cofounders" thing (and choosing them so quickly and nondiscriminately).

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 2, 2021

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The Ethereum project has eight co-founders, with the inclusion of Vitalik Buterin himself. Although some of these co-founders have actually split from the project. Going on to champion their own projects, or in the case of Anthony Di Iorio, quitting the crypto industry entirely. These eight co-founders include Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, Jeffrey Wlicke, Charles Hoskinson, Amir Chetrit, Joseph Lubin, and Gavin Wood.

Butein and Wood are listed as the original authors of the projects. With the other co-founders coming on to the project later on. Hoskinson late went on to found Cardano. Now the third-largest cryptocurrency project by market cap. And also a competitor to Ethereum.

Eight Is A Crowd

Having so many co-founders has not always been easy for the Ethereum project. Issues arose over a number of things. But the most prominent of these issues had been whether the Ethereum corporation was going to be nonprofit or for-profit. The co-founders could not seem to agree on this issue. Eventually leading to the exit of mathematician Charles Hoskinson from the group.

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It would seem that Buterin had not anticipated how much trouble it would be having such a large number of co-founders. “People are harder to tightly coordinate in small groups than I expected,” Buterin said. “You can’t just get everyone to sit in a circle, see each other’s inherent goodness and get along. Especially when huge incentive conflicts are at play,” he added.

This was said in response to another question which asked the co-founder the hardest lesson he had gotten from his time working on Ethereum. This is not the first time Buterin has pointed to people issues in Ethereum. Talking about the delays that the ETH 2.0 project had experienced, the co-founder explained that the problems were not technical as people thought at the time. Rather, it was a problem with people. Leading to various internal conflicts. He then added, “If you are building a team, it is important to know who you are working with.”

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