Ethereum co-founder cites people problems as one of the obstacles to progress
Ethereum’s visionary co-founder Vitalik Buterin has commented on the obstacles on the roadmap to Eth2 at a conference in Hong Kong
Speaking partly in Mandarin at the Virtual Fintech Forum at this week’s StartmeupHK Festival 2021, Buterin said that technology wasn’t the major issue with the world’s largest smart contract network
He admitted that building Ethereum has taken a lot more time than he had anticipated with early Eth1 blockchain build estimates of around three months turning into eighteen months in reality. The upgraded version is taking substantially longer
Buterin added that there had been a number of internal team conflicts in the five years it has taken Ethereum to get to where it is today. “One of the biggest problems I’ve found with our project is not the technical problems, its problems related with people,” he said
Buterin said the current version of Ethereum has largely become a victim of its own success with demand pushing network fees to record levels making the majority of transactions economically unviable for the average user
The Proof-of-Work Ethereum blockchain consumes the energy equivalent of Hong Kong according to Digiconomist. Comparatively, the new Proof-of-Stake network will use around 99.95% less energy