Vitalik Buterin Shares Experience Using Crypto as Payment

• Buterin offered several recommendations for expanding the use of cryptocurrencies.
• The Ethereum co-founder also addressed the problem of delayed transactions.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, has discussed his personal use of cryptocurrency in small purchases. In addition, Buterin offered several recommendations for expanding the use of cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions.

Vitalik Buterin, in a recent blog post, reflected on his attempts to buy a cup of tea in 2013 and subsequently using bitcoin. In 2013, while visiting Argentina, the co-founder of Ethereum attempted to use Ethereum to buy a cup of tea. The first trade failed because it was too little to meet the minimum exchange requirements. The second one was accepted, but he had to pay three times as much for the drink as the original amount. Buterin vented his annoyance at the network’s shortcomings and offered some solutions for making it more practical for everyday use.

Improvements Suggested

Vitalik Buterin also addressed the problem of delayed transactions not being recognized by the receiver for long periods of time. Micropayment transactions on the present network infrastructure take too long. However, this is changing thanks to EIP-1559 and the Ethereum Merge.

Vitalik suggested in a blog post that creators of digital wallets give more explicit consideration to user privacy. To commoditize the relaying position, he said, we need improved account abstraction to eliminate the need for centralized or even federated relays. The necessity of wallets having a more user-friendly design was recently stressed by Ethereum’s co-founder.

Vitalik ended his blog by stating that improvements to the user experience have been achieved over time. In particular, he noted that the average time it took for a transaction to be incorporated in the Ethereum blockchain dropped from minutes before EIP-1559 to seconds after the merging.