Vitalik Chiang Mai Dialogue: The AI Boom, What Should Crypto Fight For?

Compilation | Wu Talks Blockchain

On February 3rd, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin participated in a dialogue at the 2026 Ethereum Chiang Mai Future Summit with Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, sharing new reflections on Web3, cryptocurrencies, and social collaboration. Vitalik revisited Ethereum’s original vision and expressed concerns about the current state of the crypto space, emphasizing that technological development must serve broader social and political issues.

He discussed how the crypto sector is addressing increasing global distrust beyond technological breakthroughs. Michel proposed the concept of “Regen accelerationism,” advocating that technology should support sustainable human development, especially focusing on how to combine crypto tech with productive economies. They explored decentralized social models, how technology can enable global cooperation and resource sharing, and the challenges Web3 faces in driving deeper production and social transformation.

Guest comments do not represent Wu’s views and do not constitute investment advice. Please strictly follow local laws and regulations.

Audio transcription by GPT may contain errors. Please listen to the full podcast on platforms like Little Universe, YouTube, etc.

Back to the Beginning: Vitalik’s Reconsideration of Ethereum’s Original Intent and the Future of Crypto

Michel: A few days ago, you tweeted that you feel Ethereum’s original purpose seems to be facing some challenges, even suggesting a need to return to its foundational values. Can you explain the background of this idea?

Vitalik: I always find it helpful to look back at Ethereum’s early days, especially recalling what people were focused on and some of the projects they were developing, like various demo versions.

Particularly before 2019, even before 2017, many interesting things happened. Back then, many started experimenting with different financial tools, like MakerDAO, which became a pioneer of modern DeFi, and projects like Augur, a decentralized prediction market platform, were launched. There was also a lot of work on DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Over time, it became clearer that the term “DAO” was somewhat misleading because these organizations aren’t fully autonomous.

The initial idea was that we could use on-chain logic to create new governance models, organizing and managing resource allocation differently. Many people were dedicated to creating more decentralized solutions—whether in apps like Uber or in insurance and other industries. The enthusiasm was about whether digital tools, cryptography, and blockchain could help us organize society and our interactions with resources more efficiently and innovatively.

However, I think this enthusiasm was overwhelmed by certain factors, starting with the rise of DeFi, followed by the market exuberance of 2022. While many DeFi projects still exist and have achieved some success, we also saw collapses like Luna and Terra, and even digital monkeys worth millions of dollars have plummeted by 90% or 50%. Many on-chain games that once seemed interesting lost users as prices fell, revealing they were more about speculation than genuine fun.

2025 was a very difficult year for me, marked by iconic events like Trump launching Meme Coins. When Trump launches a Meme Coin, it’s the biggest Meme Coin of all. That signaled perhaps the end of this journey. Soon after, Trump’s Meme Coin crashed 95%. We had to consider that this might be the end of all Meme Coins. The crypto industry’s mindset seems to be responding to this, reflecting deeply: what role does crypto really play in today’s world?

Ten years ago, this question was easier to answer because there were fewer competitors. Now, with AI, projects like Starship making progress, and the possibility of landing on the Moon or Mars soon, plus rapid advances in biotech, the competition in tech is fierce.

Therefore, crypto must do more than just be a “cool tech.” It must represent something more concrete and meaningful. I believe that future cryptocurrencies should stand for social and even political issues—how, in a world increasingly filled with distrust, we can connect with each other, especially amid growing mistrust between nations, within nations, and among large corporations.

We need to consider: is there a future version of technology that doesn’t abandon tech itself but also doesn’t give up on global tech hubs like Silicon Valley, London, Hangzhou? Instead, our field needs to clarify its stance and put it into practice.

From Accelerationism to Regenerative Practice: The Origins of Ethereum Thought and the Next Step for Crypto

Michel: I want to revisit my memory of your “origin story.” I recall that before or shortly after creating Ethereum, you traveled to Spain, lived there for a while, and participated in the Catalan cooperative movement. It was a quite radical left-liberal, almost anarchist social experiment, though it didn’t go very far in practice.

On the other hand, you also deeply engaged with and inherited the libertarian, anarcho-capitalist tradition represented by Bitcoin. So, in my view, you’ve been balancing between these two extremes, and “decentralized accelerationism” seems to be a middle path—like a social democratic compromise introduced into the digital realm, trying to find a middle ground between these extremes.

Recently, Benjamin Life proposed the concept of “Regenerative Accelerationism.” As I understand it, early accelerationism was a rather nihilistic philosophy: it believed capitalism’s contradictions were so inherent that accelerating these contradictions would hasten systemic collapse, making space for new possibilities. This approach is very nihilistic in itself.

Decentralized accelerationism, to some extent, is that “middle way” you mentioned—neither denying technological progress nor blindly glorifying uncontrolled acceleration, but seeking a balance in technological evolution.

On this point, I agree with Benjamin: the world is indeed disintegrating rapidly, at least the existing order is breaking down. We are in a dangerous but critical transition period. In this context, perhaps we need to accelerate the development of alternative solutions, and “Regenerative Accelerationism” is an attempt to respond to this reality.

Based on this, I want to critique Ethereum: so far, much of Ethereum and the entire crypto industry’s work remains at the “value representation” level. Your core focus is on enabling digital currencies to circulate outside state control—essentially handling the representation and transfer of money and value.

But I think we should go one step further. Because in the real world, many are engaged in truly regenerative and productive practices—like healthier food production, renewable energy systems, localized manufacturing networks. Yet, crypto’s help in these areas remains limited.

So my real question is: what do you think about these issues? Especially, can and how can crypto technology be more deeply embedded into the productive layers of society? I’m not talking about traditional financial investments but about grassroots communities exploring ways to improve life.

Vitalik: I agree we should do more in these directions. I also want to ask you: can you give some examples of projects in crypto or at its edges that align with what you’re describing?

Michel: Sure. I can share a few projects I’m currently interested in. One is Gaia OS, which aims to build a “public resource stack” for shared ownership and management of resources globally. It’s not just a narrow crypto project but a digital reconstruction of asset and investment models.

Think of it as a “form of fractional ownership”: raising resources via global crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, then localizing these resources, governed by local communities under their own conditions, with formal legal structures for recognition. The team has done extensive “clumsy” work—studying legal systems in about sixty countries to understand how to set up trusts, foundations, and similar institutions. For me, this is a solid and very important example.

Another is Indy Johar’s project, “Civilization Options.” Its core idea is that civilizations don’t end because of failure but because they lose the ability to choose. Currently, with crises in climate, energy, and thermodynamics, there’s no simple, effective financial mechanism to sustain these alternative pathways long-term.

For example, Spain and Portugal face severe water shortages. Some are returning to medieval water practices—building channels in mountains to retain water rather than letting it rush down; experimenting with micro-dams. These ecological solutions are promising but lack sustained investment.

Without clear, investable entities, these dispersed solutions struggle to get funding. Indy’s project aims to address “how to enable distributed investment.” He’s very aware of systemic risks and challenges.

Another example I like is Will Ruddick’s Sarafu Network. You might know it. It started with about a thousand local savings groups—common in many parts of the world, called “rotating savings and credit associations.” My wife has participated in three such groups; they’re very common in Thailand.

These communities regularly save together, then pool their funds to support members’ big expenses—buying motorcycles, refrigerators, etc. Sarafu’s approach is to take about 20-25% of these community savings, put it into a larger public pool, and create an alternative currency backed by an approximately 8x reserve ratio, mapped onto the blockchain.

This way, a community with $1 million in savings can support about $8 million in economic activity, all transparent and auditable. They also built a “promise pool” system, soon launching “Cosmolocal Credits,” allowing community members to pre-commit services or goods, valuing these commitments to generate trust and liquidity before actual production.

These projects share a common point: they use technology directly to serve real communities, real production, and real life. I hope the entire crypto ecosystem shifts focus more toward these directions rather than mainly accelerating speculation, increasing capital flow speed, or solely pursuing privacy—though those are also important. To truly change the world’s production logic, Ethereum still has much room to go further.

When Capital Meets Practice: The Gap Between Web3 and Productive Economies

Vitalik: I notice that when people try different mechanisms, it’s hard to persuade others to participate in unfamiliar things. Like in Ethereum, many experiment with various ideas—some try burger-tax NFTs, or assets with conditional features. The recurring problem is that it’s difficult to get people out of their comfort zones; they prefer ERC20 because it’s familiar.

Even within ERC20, attracting interest in assets not denominated in dollars is tough. For example, Rye tokens are almost dollar-equivalent, with only slight fluctuations annually, yet they still struggle to attract attention.

I suspect that on-chain ROSCAs or similar ideas might work better in places like Thailand or the Global South, where people are already accustomed to such structures. So I wonder: do we need to tailor different structures for different regions? Do we need more crypto practitioners who understand existing local models and can offer appropriate options, rather than just inventing “completely new things”?

Michel: I’d like to add here, because I think your point is very valid. My critique is about how funds are allocated—not just Ethereum but also general critiques of NGO funding. When funding is provided with conditions, it naturally attracts creative people.

But I believe, especially in Web3, this phenomenon is even more pronounced. I’ve attended such conferences where mostly technical folks envision changing the world, then get funding—like comments in a funding pool. But your point is crucial: we should focus on what people are already doing, and recognize that practices differ across regions.

So I’d slightly reinterpret this: millions are already engaged in alternative practices. But due to funding issues, these are marginalized. My dream is that if even a small part of the five trillion dollars flowing in crypto could be channeled into regenerative feedback loops, many things could change dramatically. But I’m uncertain about the timing.

Ethereum’s Next Phase: Returning to Web3 Vision, Scaling, and Application Reconsideration

Michel: You probably agree that we’re in a transition—many things are accelerating. This might relate to your recent idea of “recalibrating Ethereum.” How do you see Ethereum’s role in the next five years? I feel these coming years will be very critical.

Vitalik: I hope Ethereum can get closer to Gavin Wood’s original Web3 vision from ten years ago: building high-value, high-assurance decentralized applications. A key challenge is providing a “shared compute, shared memory” infrastructure—allowing applications to record and verify shared facts, like token balances or community states.

This capability can be used to represent currencies but also other assets, even things that ultimately require community recognition and valuation. Ethereum’s goal is to provide this functionality at scale and convenience, making it practical and cost-effective for real-world use.

I believe we’re moving in this direction. With scalability improvements, transaction fees for many operations are below one cent, and I expect this to continue decreasing over the next 1–3 years. Ultimately, I want people to see Ethereum as “the foundational infrastructure of a decentralized internet,” like DNS, communication networks, email—basic systems that enable upper-layer applications and facilitate interoperability. I hope Ethereum will gradually become such a platform.

But beyond that, there’s an equally important and more challenging question: what should we build on top of it, and how? Traditional app development often involves setting up a server and database. Sometimes it’s just a Google Sheet. It’s easy to use but highly trust-dependent, with limited accountability, and hard to interoperate.

Blockchain’s paradigm is entirely different. In DeFi, we see a new mindset emerging: composability. Different DeFi projects can interact, combine; there are flash loans, complex paths crossing multiple on-chain AMMs. This thinking isn’t top-down design but organic ecosystem evolution. I believe similar thinking should extend beyond just money.

We’ve also made some missteps. For example, many DAO designs haven’t truly optimized efficiency or decentralization; they’re often structured to minimize legal risks under specific regulations. Legal safety is important but not the same as the original organizational ideals.

Another example: I often hear about “on-chain loyalty points.” I ask why, and they say it’s to make points more “interchangeable.” But loyalty and interchangeability are opposite: loyalty encourages sticking to a community; interchangeability aims to break boundaries and facilitate exchange. Mixing these goals causes design confusion.

So I think we need to clarify what we really want. For instance, I define “finance” as a class of formalized point systems that don’t try to prevent collusion. I’ve written about this, comparing dollars and Twitter votes: likes and retweets are also point systems—you like something, others see it, and it makes people happy.

But if we create “mutual praise alliances” on Twitter, that’s abuse; in currency systems, exchanging dollars and euros is just foreign exchange, not abuse. So, if we want to extend “finance,” we must clearly specify which interoperability behaviors we want to prevent and which should be considered normal transactions.

In summary, I want to see more in-depth thinking at the application layer: not just moving things on-chain, but first clarifying what kind of system we want to build, what goals it should serve, and then choosing mechanisms accordingly.

From Technology to Civilization: P2P as a New Paradigm for Human Self-Organization

Vitalik: I’ve been following your work and the P2P Foundation for nearly twenty years. I think P2P is a fascinating concept because many discussions about P2P aren’t just about opposing hierarchical government control but also critique internal corporate hierarchies.

I remember a talk at Fudan University where the speaker described the evolution of internet protocols—from SMTP, HTTP, to Uber—in a very unique way. It redefined what protocols and P2P mean. I’m curious: how do you understand P2P—not just technically but economically and socially? Why do you think this concept has developed so much over the past decades?

Michel: I’ve always felt that from the very beginning—like why Satoshi chose to publish the white paper on our website—he might have already sensed an intrinsic connection.

The key difference is that once P2P is implemented in computer systems, it inevitably extends to human-to-human P2P. So, P2P isn’t just a technical system; at P2P Foundation, we see it as a human system.

To me, P2P is fundamentally about humanity’s capacity for self-organization on a global scale. It enables us to initiate projects, organize value creation and distribution without being in the same physical space. It’s almost an ethical shift: if I decide to work with someone on the other side of the world, I don’t need to pay them or obey them. Such relationships only existed in small tribes in early human history, but now they can be realized globally for the first time.

Another important aspect is what I call “stigmatic coordination.” This means we no longer mainly rely on market prices or top-down commands for cooperation. Instead, in an open, global ecosystem, we can voluntarily contribute time and labor based on signals from others, participating in shared projects.

Looking at human coordination historically: early tribes were physical P2P—gift-giving, reputation, comments. Later, complex civilizations emerged based on market pricing and state commands. I believe we are now entering a new phase—“stigmatic coordination” is regaining importance, with P2P and digital collaboration evolving together.

If you ask me what AI is, I’d say it’s “symbolic coordination without humans.” Because of this, I think we’re at a critical point of a new civilization system. If civilization is about cities and states, that’s a geographic civilization; but now, we’re creating a new, non-geographic layer—a “new geography” beyond physical space.

From this perspective, I see DAOs and your initiatives as pre-structuring future institutions—a kind of “pre-constitutional” framework for the next stage of human civilization.

Chiang Mai as a Convergence Point: 4seas, Hacker Communities, and the Possibility of Generative Economies

Vitalik: What progress do you hope 4seas and Southeast Asian hacker communities can achieve in the next two years?

Michel: Chiang Mai is a very special place. It’s a real, naturally grown Thai city. It’s not like Zuzalu, built as an experimental city by external forces—that’s a different kind of experience, which I’ve also visited. But Chiang Mai’s uniqueness lies in being a genuine local city that also offers a large space for digital nomads and people from around the world.

A few years ago, I didn’t think the local cultural scene was very vibrant, but now it’s clearly different. Geographically, Chiang Mai is in an astonishing position: centered in a radius of 4,000 km, it covers about two-thirds of the world’s population, including China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and others. That’s quite rare globally.

Because of this, I believe Chiang Mai has the potential to become an important node in global transformation—truly a diverse hub. This diversity is likely to come more from Eurasia and Asia internally rather than from the traditional European-centric view. I also see 4seas as playing a key role in unlocking this potential.

Additionally, I personally care deeply about shifting from a “extractive economy” to a “generative economy.” Currently, most value is created through resource extraction—taking from nature, setting prices via supply and demand, and sometimes using taxes or donations for repair or reproduction. But what if we think differently?

Open-source communities have already shown us an alternative: value can be created directly through “contribution.” Ethereum’s value isn’t just about price; it’s about thousands of people continuously contributing code, ideas, and time to this public resource. This ongoing contribution attracts markets and investments. If we can extend this “contribution creates value” logic beyond society—recognizing that nature and living networks also generate ongoing value—that could be the key to this current transformation.

Vitalik: I think you’re spot on. That’s a very interesting point, especially regarding Chiang Mai’s future role. Every time I visit, I feel it’s at the intersection of at least three cultures: local Thai culture, Chiang Mai’s regional identity, and Chinese and Western influences, plus the deep-rooted digital nomad culture.

This makes Chiang Mai very unique and attractive. I look forward to seeing how this convergence continues to evolve over the coming decades and what role our community can play in that process.