The 2024 ABS Asian Blockchain Summit concluded with a fascinating conversation between Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, and Audrey Tang, former Digital Minister. These two influential figures in the worlds of cryptocurrency and democracy discussed various topics, including decentralized social networking, plurality in virtual worlds, the role of blockchain in democratic governance, and the need for defense mechanisms against scams.
During their conversation, Vitalik recommended the decentralized social protocol Farcaster to Audrey, who praised it as a good platform but mentioned that she had difficulty logging in and had to switch to the Supercast client instead. They also discussed the concept of plurality in virtual worlds, with Vitalik emphasizing the importance of having conversations on the internet that fall between private conversations and widely broadcast public statements. He also expressed the need for decentralized social media platforms rather than relying on a single platform.
Vitalik provided an example of X’s Community Notes feature as an embodiment of the bridging concept in plurality. The community notes algorithm determines the weightage of a user’s vote based on whether they have differing opinions on other matters but agree that a particular annotation is helpful. Audrey highlighted the importance of bridging bonuses in pluralistic virtual worlds, as they reward individuals who make efforts to bridge different cultures, languages, and communities.
The conversation then shifted to the topic of blockchain, with Audrey questioning the necessity of blockchain technology. Vitalik firmly asserted that blockchain is indeed necessary, especially as infrastructure for online democratic voting systems. He highlighted the ability of blockchain to protect privacy and resist censorship in online voting, with encrypted votes and zero-knowledge proofs ensuring the anonymity of voters while providing evidence against double voting.
Audrey also mentioned that blockchain can serve as a sandbox for democratic governance experiments. She saw the Ethereum community as a high-temperature governance sandbox where ambitious governance mechanisms can be tested under more challenging conditions.
The conversation concluded with Vitalik addressing the issue of scams in the cryptocurrency community. He suggested the need for infrastructure that functions like defense attorneys to assist and support users. He mentioned the importance of information checkers and wallets that can automatically detect and warn users about potential issues. He also highlighted the risks of deepfake fraud in the age of AI and suggested asking random questions about shared experiences to verify the identity of callers.
In summary, the Plurality Summit at the 2024 ABS Asian Blockchain Summit brought together Vitalik Buterin and Audrey Tang to discuss various aspects of decentralized social networking, plurality in virtual worlds, blockchain technology, and democratic governance. Their conversation highlighted the potential for collaboration between the cryptocurrency and democracy worlds, sparking ideas for applications that enhance public welfare and enable digital democratic governance.