Vitalik Buterin Built ETH to Counter Bitcoin’s “Limited Functionality”

Vitalik Buterin, the visionary developer who co-founded Ethereum (ETH), was recently interviewed by Business Insider, where he stated that his vision for creating Ethereum was to solve Bitcoin’s (BTC) limited functionality.

The interview started off with Buterin explaining how he got into the crypto space. He first got involved around 2011 when he heard about Bitcoin in a couple of places and thought it was something really interesting.

He quickly became intrigued by Bitcoin’s blockchain technology and got deeply involved in the community. He then co-founded Bitcoin Magazine and worked on various Bitcoin-related things and eventually dropped out of university to join the space full time.

Vitalik Buterin’s Visionary Realization

Upon joining the cryptocurrency space full time, Buterin started to realize the true potential of blockchain technology as capable of a lot more than just being a single, decentralized, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.

Per the interview, upon his realization, which he and others in the space shared, Buterin came up with the idea behind Ethereum (ETH), which he described as:

“This idea that blockchain was a built-in programming language, as, kind of, what I thought was the simplest and most logical way to actually build a platform that can be used for many more kinds of applications.”

Ethereum was Built to Counter Bitcoin’s Limited Functionality

Later in the interview, Buterin was asked:

“What was the biggest issue with Bitcoin (BTC) that you were trying to fix with Ethereum?”

He responded quickly by saying he wanted to solve its “too limited functionality,” where he then used an analogy comparing Bitcoin to a plot key calculator. He stated that plot key calculators simply do one thing, and they do that one thing well.

He then compared Ethereum to being more like a smartphone, which can run multiple applications capable of doing almost anything, including playing music, browsing the web, as well as acting as a plot key calculator.

Concluding his explanation of where his idea for Ethereum came from, Buterin said:

“So [what I did is] basically taking that same kind of [smartphone] idea of increasing the power of the system by making it more general purpose and applying it to blockchains.”

The Business Insider interview with Vitalik Buterin can be seen in the video below.

What do you think of Vitalik Buterin? Will his visionary thought process and ability to execute on ideas see that Ethereum is a success in the long-term? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.