Vitalik: You Can Disagree With Me and Still Use Ethereum
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly defended Ethereum’s permissionless, neutral design while distinguishing his personal views from protocol-level neutrality. Posting on X, Buterin argued that criticism of projects built on Ethereum—calling out what he termed “corposlop”—is free speech, not censorship, and that users and builders need not share his opinions to use the network. He compared Ethereum to Linux as a neutral base layer that can support competing visions, urged teams to state their principles, and encouraged building value-aligned ecosystems on top of the protocol rather than abandoning it. The comments fueled debate across crypto circles about founder influence, decentralization, commercialization, AI integration and privacy. Keywords: Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, permissionless, decentralization, free speech.
Neutral
Buterin’s statement reinforces Ethereum’s core property—permissionlessness and neutrality—without introducing protocol changes or governance moves that would directly alter ETH’s supply, demand, or technical fundamentals. For traders, this is likely neutral for ETH price: it reduces uncertainty about potential censorship or protocol-level restrictions (a modest positive signal for long-term confidence) but also highlights community friction and founder influence, which can create short-term narrative volatility. Short term: possible small spikes in volatility as markets react to discussions about founder influence and ecosystem direction. Long term: neutral-to-mildly positive, since reaffirming open access supports network utility and developer activity, but the effect is unlikely to be a primary driver of price absent concrete changes (e.g., upgrades, regulatory shifts, large capital moves).