Buterin: Imitation Blockchains Will Fail

Responding to questions from users at the Ethereum AMA session on Reddit, Vitalik Buterin said that new chains should prioritize meeting the needs of the average user and work to bring a new philosophy to the cryptocurrency industry.

The Ethereum founder drew parallels between the current situation and the rise and dominance of the first social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. He said that imitating Ethereum and Bitcoin (BTC), the two most successful cryptocurrency projects to date, could lead to failure.

“For a new chain community to be successful, it really needs to offer users a very new and unique philosophy and thus stand out from the rest. Individual Cosmos chains may often be similar, but Cosmos as an ecosystem is so different that individuals should care about the difference from the Ethereum ecosystem. I am increasingly confident that chains that try to look like Ethereum to the average user will fail and users will see Bitcoin, Ethereum or Cosmos as different ecosystems, just like Twitter and Facebook do.”

Buterin also said in early December that the focus of the crypto space should be on developing the underlying technology, not price, as the market goes through prolonged selling. Meanwhile, the thoughts of the Ethereum founder do not contradict what he has said in the past. He has previously stated that the industry needs time to develop in order for crypto to be widely used. This is because industry players think that with the launch of new projects, the market will experience a dot-com bubble-like erasure for maturity to occur.