At the Community Ethereum Development Conference (EDCON 2019) in Sydney, Australia, Vitalik Buterin set an interesting precedent for prominent crypto developers: he got on stage and rapped about Ethereum scaling.
Vitalik Buterin: Crypto’s Next Rap Genius?
In case you’re wondering, this isn’t a punishingly delayed April Fools’ joke. Here’s the proof:
Buterin’s rap debut starts:
“Proof-of-stake is hard, but one thing I do know is when we [inaudible] and shard, we’ll change the whole thing though. Eth 2.0, yo. Eth 2.0, yo…”
The rap refers to the upcoming scaling upgrades that Ethereum will undergo, including its move to proof-of-stake and sharding.
Embarrassing? This is beyond embarrassing. You cannot get any whiter than this.
— El Gorrion (@crypto_gorrion) April 11, 2019
The video features a cringeworthy “unicorn” dance with backdrops peppered with cartoon sharks. The song seems to have two parts, and the apparent cohesion of the dance moves and the lyrics seems to imply that the team worked hard on the choreography and lyrics. The delivery might not be Grammy-worthy, but many will be surprised to see such uncharacteristic enthusiasm from the crypto-millionaire and techno-wunderkind.
Does Ethereum scaling need a rap song to gain traction? We want to think not, but certainly, the platform has had some growing pains in recent times. Then there was the memorable episode with Afri Schoedon, in which the developer trolled the community and ended up quitting after receiving many vitriolic comments in response.
A History of Crypto and Rap
Rap music has long been a part of the crypto community. One of the most successful Bitcoin artists, ZhouTonged, has many thousands of views on YouTube.
Buterin recently spoke at length about scaling and governance in Ethereum in a podcast called Into the Ether. It’s a worth a listen if you’re interested in the thought leader’s actual beliefs on scaling, rather than his more artistic (?) pursuits
Buterin, of course, also gave a serious presentation at the event:
Vitalik talking about #ethereum casper at Edcon pic.twitter.com/izuj2NICVc
— The Crypto Lark (@TheCryptoLark) April 11, 2019
The Ethereum creator has yet to comment on Twitter about his budding rap career, though a parody news site has published a rather funny read.
Vitalik Buterin Quits Ethereum to Focus on Solo Rap Career. https://t.co/dtFVP8ghDE
— Coin Jazeera 🇺🇸 (@CoinJazeera) April 12, 2019
A vote is currently in progress about changing the proof-of-work algorithm to shake off ASIC miners. The proposal is called “ProgPOW.” It has over 92% support at the time of writing.
ProgPoW vote#ETHEREUM $ETH pic.twitter.com/bRFbMDWv5p
— CryptoCapital (@CryptoCapital15) April 12, 2019
Whether or not ProgPOW takes effect, the Ethereum network will soon be moving to a proof-of-stake model anyway, which is a very different system of producing blocks. Similar to Tezos and other proof-of-stake cryptocurrency systems, Ethereum holders will then “stake” their coins – making them unavailable for use – to secure new blocks.
The eventual PoS upgrade has been a long time coming, but like Buterin says in his rap, “proof-of-stake is hard.”
