Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin released a paper analyzing key areas of the ecosystem and stated that low-risk decentralized finance (DeFi) can play the same role for Ethereum as a search engine did for Google. According to him, such solutions create a long-term economic foundation and align with community goals, unlike memecoins and NFTs.
The Gap Between Trends and Sustainable Economy
Buterin noted that for a long time the ecosystem lived in two different dimensions. On one side, popularity was driven by memecoins, NFTs, and risky DeFi models based on temporary incentives and speculation.
On the other, there were useful projects like ENS, Farcaster, or Lens that matched community values but could not provide the economic sustainability of a $500 billion blockchain.
Why NFTs Did Not Become the Solution
According to the Ethereum co-founder, NFTs and memecoins brought attention but failed to become the foundation of the ecosystem. Their mass adoption showed that hype-driven tools do not solve the key task of ensuring Ethereum’s sustainable economy.
He stressed that in the future, it is precisely “low-risk DeFi” that can become the base on which more experimental directions, including NFTs, will be built.
By low-risk DeFi, Buterin means basic functions such as payments, savings, synthetic assets, and fully collateralized lending. He believes these products provide real value, reduce risks, and gradually create a stable core.
Unlike memecoins and NFTs, low-risk DeFi projects already demonstrate resilience even against global instability.
Long-Term Prospects
Buterin emphasized that it is DeFi that can economically support Ethereum while aligning with the network’s cultural goals. He added that promoting memecoins or NFTs as the ecosystem’s main achievement looks unserious, while creating global infrastructure for payments and savings can truly change the situation.
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- Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade: Scalability Before $10K ETH?
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