The post Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin urges cypherpunks to resist government and corporate encroachment appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is urging cypherpunks to resist government and corporate encroachment, predicting that both seek more control and less trust. Buterin stresses that it is the work of the Ethereum developers and cypherpunk community to ensure user independence without being hostile to institutions. According to Buterin, the relationship between cypherpunks and large corporations or governments is far from simple. He points out that governments and corporations are not always enemies of privacy tools and open systems, nor are they guaranteed allies. They usually support open systems in one area while pushing for control in another. Buterin points to several recent examples, noting that the EU has signaled strong support for open-source software. At the same time, some EU officials push for Chat Control, requiring encrypted messaging to have backdoors. He also cited the U.S. Patriot Act, which he says remains in effect with little interest in repealing it from either Democrats or Republicans.  Buterin says institutions play both sides in the cypherpunk debate According to the Ethereum co-founder, institutions play both sides of the cypherpunk debate, and this pattern reflects a basic mindset: control everything possible and resist control by others. However, he concludes that cypherpunks need not be hostile to institutions, though they should firmly defend their core interests.  For Ethereum users, Buterin believes that the core interest is building social, financial, and identity systems that protect user freedom and self-sovereignty. He calls Ethereum a censorship-resistant world computer, where no one has to approve of every activity running on it. In his view, building strong systems on top of Ethereum to compete both against CEXs and within blockchain ecosystems is what matters. “At best, we can interoperate with the non-cypherpunk world to better bootstrap the cypherpunk world…Synergies like this should be explored across all domains.” –Vitalik Buterin,…

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Filed under: News - @ January 24, 2026 8:17 am