Ling listening | "V God" is not God: Vitalik Hangzhou line 48 hours close-up observation

This may be the tenth time Vitalik has come to China.

This trip, his schedule was arranged to be full. After finishing the speech at the Shanghai Wanxiang Summit, he rushed to Hangzhou and Shenzhen to promote Ethereum 2.0.

This time he chose the venues for colleges and universities because "they are the next generation of developers."

In 2014, 20-year-old Vitalik founded Ethereum to open the “blockchain 2.0 era”. Smart contracts have arisen. Since then, tens of thousands of projects have been issued on the Ethereum, opening the ICO frenzy. Ethereum's token ETH has also soared from $1 to a maximum of $1,506, becoming the world's second-largest digital currency by market capitalization, second only to Bitcoin. Vitalik himself is also called the "V God" by the blockchain.

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Ling listening blockchain (WeChat public number: lingtingqkl) followed the observation and interview for two days. In my eyes, he is not a "V god", but a self-inherently reserved 25-year-old neighbor.

Move the emoticon pack and respond to you with "good" + "smile"

September 21, Zhejiang University. The people who came to listen to him on the spot were crowded. When he came to power, there was a commotion in the crowd, and everyone got up and took pictures. "Hey…" He picked up the mic and made a strange noise. The students at the scene were amused by him.

After 40 minutes, his speech ended. However, the host told him that he still had to stand on the stage and could not return to his seat. His face changed, his mouth was flat and his face was helpless. He could only stand on the stage and accept the "soul torture" of the audience.

Vitalik pouted a small mouth

At noon, a group of 10 people went into the restaurant to eat. He walked straight ahead, the first sitting on the chair in the middle of the round table. A second later, he found that everyone around him was looking at him. It seemed that something was wrong. He immediately got up and sat straight on the far side of the door.

During the meeting, someone introduced him to the development of the Hangzhou blockchain. Most of the time he nodded politely and heard that he could understand it. He said in a friendly way: "OK" + smile.

The waiter came to the fruit, he said happily: "Watermelon." Seeing the fish that he likes to come up, Chinese blurted out: "Wow, there are fish to eat." Quickly pick up the spoon and smash it into the bowl.

He has studied Chinese specifically, and his current Chinese level maintains basic daily communication. He said that China's eating culture is very interesting: "Everyone can only order their own dishes when they eat in the United States, but everyone in China is together. Westerners say that private is free, and public is anti-free. But China is more free to eat."

After dinner, he sat next to him at the original chain CTO James to ask a technical question. As he spoke, Vitalik took out a dark red bag from his pocket and took a pen from it. James found A4 paper. Two people wrote the code on the table, completely ignoring the misunderstanding of others.

The first one is the Ethereum founder Vitalik, the right one is the original chain chief architect James.

His companion told me that taking a pen with him is his habit for many years. Whether he is eating or on the plane, he is thinking, often recording the next string of symbols. When you talk to you, although you don't look directly at you, your ears are always listening, your head is always turning, and your ability to capture effective information is particularly strong, especially numbers and words.

I asked him: "Is there anyone who said that you are a child prodigy?"

As soon as he turned his head, he suddenly felt like a deflated ball, his hands covered his face, and he was helpless.

These details are the Vitalik I saw, cute and interesting. When it comes to technical issues, I am very excited. When I encounter non-technical problems, I like to respond to you with "good + smile", a mobile expression pack.

Open ecology opens his curiosity

His father was a computer scientist who received his first computer when he was 4 years old. Later, he immigrated to Canada from Russia. In the third grade of primary school, he was able to double the speed of ordinary people. At the age of 12, he wrote a small game in C++.

Before he was 16 years old, he liked to play World of Warcraft and got a very high level. But once, "World of Warcraft" production company Blizzard made a move to his beloved game character, canceling the "life siphon" skills. He contacted Blizzard engineers many times and got a reply: In order to balance the game character, he could not recover.

"That time, I cried and fell asleep." Since then, he realized how terrible the consequences of centralized services .

At the age of 17, he met Bitcoin.

The open ecology of Bitcoin opens up his curiosity. Everyone can participate freely and equally. No one is at the top of this ecology. A group of people can work together to create a currency and achieve a certain value.

“The blockchain infinitely magnifies the concept of free and open source: software just allows you to work independently, and blockchain technology allows us to work with a group of people to form a like-minded community.”

The world is not created by the brightest minds

Today, although Ethereum has become a world-renowned bottom-level public chain, it has not been so smooth in the early days of Ethereum. In 2015, Vitalik was very difficult to raise funds for the first time in China.

In a coincidence, he met Xiao Feng, the chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain Lab.

“When Ethereum needed a lot of money, Wanxiang bought Ethereum worth $500,000, which is a slap in the snow.”

Vitalik told Ling listening to the blockchain (WeChat public number: lingtingqkl), this $500,000 allowed him to have enough funds to pay the developers, and the platform has gained considerable development. In addition, Wanxiang also helped them build communities and help them communicate with Chinese regulators. It also introduced many Chinese companies to them, which greatly enriched the Ethereum ecosystem.

Vitalik speaks at the Wanxiang Summit

I thought that technical geeks would agree with the idea that technology changes the world, but Vitalik's bottom line is not.

Due to the world influence of Ethereum, Vitalik has communicated with many national leaders. These include: Russia, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Singapore, Thailand, etc.

“Most countries have a group of people interested in blockchain, and they all care about how we use this technology to do things.”

However, after talking to these high-level executives, Vitalik did not think they were better than ordinary people. “ Part of success comes from hard work, part comes from talent, and finds the right people. The world is not created by the most intelligent people, but everyone can participate and change it. ”

Technical problems are solved, people's problems make me a headache

During the five years of Ethereum, Vitalik found that technical problems can find good solutions most of the time, but people's problems make him a headache.

Before Ethereum, some founding partners left, and many people struggled with each other because of different interests and ideas. “It makes me a headache, it’s really hard to make everyone happy.”

Different economic mechanisms allow a large group of people to collaborate and learn how to run different projects without having to rely too much on centralized operations to tell everyone what to do. However, the implementation of specific individual identities, each person's ideas will be difficult to balance, after all, people have their own aspirations. At the moment, getting along with people is based on the ability that Vitalik needs to learn.

Wherever he goes, he will always be surrounded by people who like him. To sign, to take a photo, to consult the various problems of Ethereum.

Today, he spends most of his time researching and traveling to different countries to promote Ethereum. "I have been running around outside. But I don't like to talk to others all the time. When I want to be quiet, I will calm down and study, write code programming, and do other things with the gap."

Vitalik accepts an exclusive interview with Babbitt

I enjoy technical research more than financial freedom.

Earlier this year, Vitalik announced his own cryptocurrency portfolio and other sources of income. At the age of 25, he had a huge fortune.

But for him, having a lot of wealth just makes you feel safe and no longer has to worry about the future. “I don’t like spending money. I offered $5 million in grants to Stanford University and donated money to the Gates Foundation. There are also research institutions, universities and charities.”

I asked him: "If you ask someone about your ETH currency, how would you answer?"

"Don't answer…" He showed a hard time.

Vitalik has many dreams, and the biggest dream is to create a more open and fair world with the help of blockchain.

He said: Now is a very interesting moment in human civilization, and many things are changing at the same time. The tools we use to collaborate need to improve quickly as time goes by. “In this world, everyone has different ideas, and I hope to use blockchain technology to provide new possibilities for human collaboration.”

"Think about it, what will you look like in ten years." I asked.

He straightened up in the high chair, took a long breath, and once again showed a difficult color.

He thought about it and said: "This depends on how Ethereum is gone. If the future blockchain is not as we wish, what should I do? So what I can do is to continue to make the blockchain better. I will definitely participate in Ethereum in the future, but apart from the blockchain, I also want to do other things, such as the economic field. If there is no Ethereum, I may become a mathematician or an economist."

Babbitt editor Tang Xiuling and Vitalik

The greatest achievement and the greatest anxiety come from Ethereum

In recent years, the most exciting thing for him is the rapid development of the ecology of Ethereum. Three years ago, if something went wrong, he had to solve it himself, and now eight different teams are building the Ethereum 2.0 client.

They are distributed throughout the world, dispersed and independent, and ultimately achieve the same agreement, allowing Ethereum 2.0 clients to communicate with each other and accept each other's blocks. They have a weekly conference call and a workshop is held approximately every two to three months.

“I think this kind of separate work and then merged together to keep things in sync is very successful.”

The thing that most frustrates him is that the direction of virtual currency is still unclear . In 2015, although some members of the community were curious about Ethereum, the community of Bitcoin said: no, no, no, they are liar, don't break the monopoly of Bitcoin. Since then, the Ethereum community and the Bitcoin community have completely divided.

At present, there is still a bubble in the digital currency market. The core developers of Ethereum, represented by Vitalik, always try to avoid the purpose of making money. They are more inclined to exchange and explore in research and development, academics and technology.

Today, he promotes Ethereum 2.0 around the world. And set up the four steps of Ethereum 2.0. First, adopt Casper FFG to open the first step of Ethereum to PoS. Then develop technology to support the complete application and the main functions of Ethereum 2.0, and do system optimization on this basis.

Vitalik and Babbitt "Content Day Mission"

"You have come to China so many times, do you like China?" Finally, I asked.

“Alright. In the US and Europe, people talk about blockchain, more about ideology, about freedom, decentralization, and open source. In Asia, people prefer to discuss cryptocurrencies and projects that do things with tokens. In the blockchain ecosystem, many VC-invested projects have large amounts of capital. In Europe, such funds are less, and European cultural and technological factors are stronger. Many people do things for the project, but they do not expect to get paid.” After that, shrugged and spread his hands.

After the speech at Zhejiang University, he quickly walked out of the building. There were several steps in front of the building to the playground. He suddenly jumped down and jumped lightly, relieved. Then, quickly walk away from the crowd.

This scene is the most relaxing moment for me to follow him for two days.

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Regarding Ethereum 2.0, please pay attention to Vitalik's speech in Hangzhou: "When is Ethereum 2.0 coming? Is Boca an enemy or a friend? Vitalik live debut

"Lingying Blockchain" is the first blockchain business observation column of the whole network. It is edited by Babbitt. Chinese journalism winner Tang Xialing and the team have built a heavy team to talk about industry figures, focus on key topics, and keep a copy of the blockchain. Historical draft.

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