Is Ethereum too tied to Vitalik Buterin?

[pilosopotasyo]

Ever since Ethereum came into inception, Vitalik Buterin has been leading the way for the project's success. While I have nothing against this, sometimes I think it defeats the purpose of crypto in its entirety. There's a reason why Satoshi created Bitcoin in the first place without revealing his/her identity to the public. The fact that everybody knows who created Ethereum, could greatly put the project at risk in the future. For instance, if Vitalik dies or something bad happens to him, the price per Ethereum could plummet on the market. Everything Vitalik says has an impact (either directly or indirectly) on the project itself. With Bitcoin, that's not the case since no one knows who Satoshi was. His/her contribution led Bitcoin to take its own steps after he/she left the project. If Ethereum wants to become a truly decentralized cryptocurrency, the project needs to distance itself from the founder.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Ethereum is too tied to Vitalik Buterin? If not, please explain why. Your input will be greatly appreciated.

I don't think so, Buterin can leave the project and every developer can take it and continue what  Buterin has started, Ethereum is very much attached now to Vitalik because it is still a work in progress, remember it's transitioning from mining to staking, so there are still a lot of things Vitalik to oversee, he can leave in the future and it will still develop.

[residivis]

of course it is because there is nobody else to make any decisions and there is not much of a network to analyze those decisions as a proposal and decide whether they  wanted to accept them or not. that is what happens when the projects become centralized, only one person or one team makes all the decisions just like banking system!

I also agree because if we are not consistent in the work of individuals or groups there will be many problems that make many people fall into things that are not good. besides that if there is someone or a serious team then we better give trust and not waste their work.

[Gayong88]

In my opinion it was discussed earlier by the stakeholders there. I am sure it will proceed as it is without dependence whether it is being led now by the founder or the next generation.

[deathcode]

I also agree because if we are not consistent in the work of individuals or groups there will be many problems that make many people fall into things that are not good. besides that if there is someone or a serious team then we better give trust and not waste their work.

we certainly know how the development team from ethereum has been trying hard until now to be able to survive in the crypto market. a lot of development has been done and I don't think there is any need to doubt the quality of the ethereum developers. they have a strong team that can make ethereum survive so far.

[rz20]

Vitalik is the founder of the Ethereum and so of course whatever he says will directly or indirectly impact the project and the same is the case with any other company out there. Words from CEOs or founders will always have some impact on the project.

[zasad@]

https://medium.com/@chromaticcapital/eth2-for-dummies-11ff9b11509f

Here’s a list of the teams building ETH2 (in no particular order):
ChainSafe Systems
30+ person company based in Toronto, Ontario, with 5 developers working on their ETH2 client
Grassroots developers who met each other at the Toronto Ethereum Developer Meetup
Building a client called Lodestar written in JavaScript
PegaSys
50-person team distributed around the world at ConsenSys, the largest company in the Ethereum ecosystem
Built an enterprise-friendly ETH1 client called Pantheon
Have a team of researchers that heavily work on the ETH2 specification
Building a Java-based client called Artemis, optimized for enterprise use
Harmony
4-person team based in Russia
Building a Java Ethereum client
Not much information publicly available about them yet
Potentially merging with PegaSys/Artemis
Parity Technologies
60+ person company based in Berlin, with a large remote workforce (not all working on ETH2)
Received $5 million from the Ethereum Foundation to build an ETH2 client named Substrate Shasper
Parity is also the team behind the ambitious interoperability blockchain project Polkadot, which some consider a competitor to Ethereum
Built and maintained the second most popular client in ETH1, also called Parity
Prysmatic Labs
6-person team distributed around the US
Actively posting updates on their blog, which are a great way to learn about and follow ETH2 more broadly
Building a client called Prysm intended for a wide variety of mainstream usage, similar to Geth in ETH1
Sigma Prime
4-person team based in Sydney, Australia
Cybersecurity experts with very strong academic/software development backgrounds
Building a client called Lighthouse, suited for mainstream use cases
Status
8-person team based all over Europe
Working on a light client called Nimbus, meant to be run using smartphones and other ‘light’ environments
Trinity
4-person team contracted to work by the Ethereum Foundation
Building a lightweight client which will serve as a prototype for more advanced implementations
Nethermind
7-person team based in London and Poland
Building a Windows client for ETH2 in .NET

You see that the best programmers are working on this project in different parts of the world.
Ethereum can no longer be stopped. I do not think that Vitalik now has an important role in decision making.

[Herbert2020]

of course it is because there is nobody else to make any decisions and there is not much of a network to analyze those decisions as a proposal and decide whether they  wanted to accept them or not. that is what happens when the projects become centralized, only one person or one team makes all the decisions just like banking system!

I also agree because if we are not consistent in the work of individuals or groups there will be many problems that make many people fall into things that are not good. besides that if there is someone or a serious team then we better give trust and not waste their work.

the whole point of creating decentralized systems is that people no longer have to "give their trust" to anybody or any team. instead they replace it by either their own judgement (which i achieved when they run full nodes and vote for any change like any democracy in its true meaning) or place it in the judgement of the majority of the network which should consist of enough number of independent individuals to eliminate the chances of one group taking over.

otherwise if you want to put your trust in 1 person then why even bother with a cryptocurrency when enough centralized companies exist?

[Abiky]

Unlike many other blockchain that has a close team and a showy founding member, Ethereum is a much more diverse project with a diverse community directly involved in it's development. Go to the official org site of Ethereum and they bring Vitalik just among some early contributors. He's not like so much of a limelight as Justin Tron and has a lesser involvement in decision making about the blockchain.

That's certainly true, mate. Compared with TRON's Justin Sun, I think that Vitalik has less involvement in the Ethereum project's direction that I've thought it would be. As you've said earlier, there are many developers working on the project with geographical diversity. This makes Ethereum much more decentralized than most other smart contract platforms on the market today (like EOS or TRON). Vitalik Buterin could be an advisor for the project, instead of its leader.  That way, Ethereum could lead in the right direction. I was surprised to see how a rumor of Vitalik's death, led to a massive decline in ETH's price some time ago. This shows us that people directly link the Ethereum project to the founder itself. If he dies, prices will go down the drain. A recovery will be feasible, but it will take longer than usual.

What's important here is that the project remains as decentralized as possible. If the community works together with Vitalik, the Ethereum project could reach new heights. Some say that Ethereum is much more decentralized than Bitcoin, due to its wide diversity of geographically distributed nodes. In other words, ETH nodes are more distributed worldwide than those on the BTC network. All in all, time will tell us if Ethereum will be able to maintain its decentralization or all the other way around. Just my thoughts