Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has made a colossal investment in a vision for foundational change by withdrawing a total of 16,384 ETH (around USD 45 million) from his trust fund. This money will be used to finance the creation of an open-source, verifiable, and secure technology stack comprising software, hardware, and biotechnologies.
What is the Vision Behind the $45 Million Commitment?
The purpose of this commitment is much larger than just donating the funds to one project. Rather, Buterin sees this as a strategic investment in what he calls “full-stack openness and verifiability” by building out an ecosystem of integrated tools that will empower users to have complete control over their data and digital identity.
Examples of projects he referenced when describing his vision (as guaranteeing user sovereignty) include private messaging apps and secure operating systems to open-source silicon chips and health tech. To mention some: Vensa (open silicon) and UCritter (ZK proofing).
Over time, Buterin will roll out these funds to various projects and work on creating decentralized staking solutions to provide a source of ongoing funding for this initiative.
Why is the Personal Funding Initiative Important
The pledge of personal capital signifies a major shift in both philosophy and operational shift. By funding his “full-stack” vision, Buterin has now taken responsibility himself for certain areas he considers important to digital self-sovereign identity, even though they might not strictly fall under the Ethereum Foundation’s charter of protocol development, which focuses on austerity.
Furthermore, Buterin also wants to show that the fight for digital self-sovereignty will require more than just building out a blockchain layer, as well as demonstrating a “skin-in-the-game” approach to solving the trust problem, putting his own capital behind the belief that truly open and verifiable systems are worth funding up to their maximum potential as a public good.
