Your Government Does Not Have The Authority To Define Who You Are - Vitalik Buterin The Creator Of Ethereum Is Doubling Down On The Crypto Pseudonym Culture

Buterin’s tweet affirms crypto’s pseudonymous culture at a time when the industry’s massive development has compelled the industry’s top players to be more open about their true identities.

Buterin has recently entered the argument over anonymity, although not officially commenting on the Buzzfeed issue. He expressed his ideas on Twitter on Wednesday,

You don’t get negative personal consequences for saying things other people don’t like as anon, but you also miss out on a lot of positive personal consequences, he tweeted.

Many people are better known by their online monikers than by their real names in the crypto sector, which is rife with pseudonyms and anonymous users. That’s great with Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum blockchain’s 28-year-old founder and a prominent voice in the crypto world. Your government doesn’t get to define who you really are, he declared in a tweet on Friday. If you use a different name in most day-to-day contacts, that is your true name, he said, adding that people should stop referring to their passport names as their genuine names.

Investors Have Poured Hundreds Of Millions

Buterin’s tweet affirms crypto’s pseudonymous culture at a time when the industry’s massive development has compelled the industry’s top players to be more open about their true identities. Despite the fact that investors have poured hundreds of millions, if not billions, of money into what they’ve developed, many of the people behind significant crypto ventures are only recognized by their pseudonyms.

This challenge was highlighted in February when Buzzfeed revealed the real names of the founders of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, Gordon Goner and Gargamel. Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, two 30-somethings with literary degrees who met while growing up in Florida, turned out to be them.

Some members of the crypto community reacted angrily to Buzzfeed’s post, claiming it amounted to doxxing, a term used to describe someone who discloses someone else’s private information online with malevolent intent.

The Anonymity Of The Internet

Buterin has recently entered the argument over anonymity, although not officially commenting on the Buzzfeed issue. He expressed his ideas on Twitter on Wednesday, noting that while revealing real names for accountability is sometimes beneficial, there are instances when anonymity is required, such as while voting or serving on juries.

On Wednesday, Buterin noted that the anonymity of the internet allows people to express themselves freely. He did, however, concede some drawbacks. You don’t get negative personal consequences for saying things other people don’t like as anon, but you also miss out on a lot of positive personal consequences, he tweeted.

Buterin has previously spoken out against anonymity in public. In 2017, Buterin responded to Russian writer Leonid Bershidsky on Twitter, citing former Google engineer James Damore as an example of the drawbacks of using your true identity in public. Damore sent a sexist memo in 2017 attacking Google’s diversity policy, arguing that women have more neuroticism (more anxiety, lower stress tolerance).

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