At a major call to the blockchain industry, Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, is calling on crypto professionals to put down their crypto-hoods and get out with mainstream technology business. This, however, is part of the reason that Buterin, in a tweet that virtually sparked a chain reaction among the crypto community, advocated for widening the acceptance of crypto to include bridges with non-crypto industries.
It came in response to a thread on Twitter discussing where the PrivacyScaling initiative should focus their energy in 2025 and which events they should attend. I thought that a big step forward for the blockchain community would be to start getting involved in cybersecurity and cryptography mainstream conferences. He also called for fostering ties with decentralized non-blockchain projects like the Mastodon social media platform or the Secure Scuttlebutt database protocol.
Buterin’s Call to Action for Blockchain Innovation
Buterin’s remarks highlight a pressing issue in the crypto industry: its tendency to operate in silos. If the community only thinks about blockchain events that are directly related to blockchain, it will miss the chance to hear what experts from other fields are working on.
Buterin tweeted, “Classifying common cryptography and decentralization initiatives as non-crypto is a massive failure, and it’s a problem with the cryptography industry, not with crypto.” He called for immediate action to stem this tide and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration.
And another member of the online discussion, Devansh Mehta, agreed with Buterin’s sentiments only to suggest the creation of programs like the Ethereum Foundation Scholars Program to bring people from the crypto and non-crypto events. Engaging with external communities would not only lend the crypto space fresh insights but also help to dispel skepticism of blockchain technology, Mehta added.
Mehta added, ‘Aligning these connections can result in collaborative strategies to tackle global issues such as data protection, digital sovereignty and decentralisation.’
However, it’s not easy to bridge crypto with mainstream technology. During a Delphi Digital podcast, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz ai16z Shaw said that, while decentralized funding and market intelligence hold great potential to transform the crypto industry, too often projects fail to deliver on their promises.
Shaw explained: “The market spans from opportunity to capital to optimization of the best of things.” But he said preconceived notions stymie collaboration, with blockchain seen as speculative by mainstream technologists and crypto enthusiasts alone relying on embarrassing themselves to pursue the technology.
However, these challenges still pale in comparison to the rich rewards of cross-industry collaboration. Steering out its comfort zone, the crypto industry aspired to break into the larger knowledge base and create innovation outside the context.
The call to action that Buterin has made was also a wake-up call to the blockchain community to think and rethink its strategy. In order for the space to become more inclusive and have a larger impact, there will be active participation in mainstream events, efforts with other non-crypto decentralization projects, and a continued effort to educate the skeptics.
In the ever-growing blockchain space, it may be necessary to work with a variety of communities to solve the complex global problems and establish the place of decentralized technology in building the future of the digital world.
