Proof of Stake

The ideas behind Ethereum in the words of its founder, describing a radical vision for more than a digital currency—reinventing organisations, economics, and democracy itself in the age of the internet.

After Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin dropped out of college and launched Bitcoin Magazine, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source protocol that would take what Bitcoin did for money and do it for everything else: contracts, social networks, and sharing economies. Now, less than a decade later, his idea is valued at about half a trillion dollars, and it is the foundation for the weird new world of NFT artworks, virtual real estate, and decentralised autonomous organisations.

This book is a collection of essays including "On Free Speech," which creates a whole new standard for free speech and how to protect it; "Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election," in which Buterin bets on the Trump-Biden election before and after it was decided, and how the prediction markets help explain the political situation today where so many believe Trump won; and the last essay in the book, "Crypto Cities," where Buterin observes the beginnings already in motion of a future where cities governed through blockchain better serve the public good than governing political institutions do today.

Understanding and engaging with Buterin’s ideas will be of growing importance as the consequences of his invention continue to unfold and inspire debate worldwide. These writings reveal Buterin to be a vivid and imaginative writer, and this edition includes context from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider. The white paper itself that started it all is also included as an appendix. While many around him were focused on seeing the value of their tokens rise, Buterin was working through the problems and possibilities of crafting an Internet-native world.