What do you think?
Rate this book
Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains
The ideas behind Ethereum in the words of its founder, describing a radical vision for more than a digital currency--reinventing organizations, 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 system 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 decentralized autonomous organizations.
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, collected from his essays before and during the rise of Ethereum, reveal Buterin to be a vivid and imaginative writer, and this edition includes context from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider. 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.
After Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin dropped out of college and launched Bitcoin Magazine>, he wrote the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source system 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 decentralized autonomous organizations.
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, collected from his essays before and during the rise of Ethereum, reveal Buterin to be a vivid and imaginative writer, and this edition includes context from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider. 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.
384 pages, Paperback
Published September 27, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
Read
December 5, 2023read about 1/2 to 2/3. first pass/skim through this book of Vitalik Buterin, which is more a bundle of his previous blog posts and scattered publications in niche magazines, rather than a cohesive book with a down-to-earth explanation of his philosophy. Nevertheless, it is revealing of his mindset, which is kind of significant to grasp as he is the founder of Ethereum cryptocurrency, an early missionary of blockchains, and he might have a long tail of influence on history and economics, a prophet of the coming world in a hundred years hence that we may be hard-pressed to recognize. Frankly, I didn't understand much at first glance as his reasoning relies a lot on optimization of society, the explanation of trust-less societies with smart contracts and reputation-based economies that remove the uncertainty and thus the need to enter market contracts based on faith, as well as hierarchical institutions of governance based on faith, etc. A lot of his logic is based on calculations of probability, bets and gambling, maybe akin to an economist's mind.
As is common with a lot of his fellow would-be computationalist utopians, Vitalik and his book manifest a strong libertarian, anarchist bent. I don't want to offer just some knee-jerk unthinking criticism of this, but I do have to note that his first assertion in the first couple sentences of this book is that the market, as opposed to the institution, is the fairest way that two people, or groups, come into agreement with each other, on their own volition, and come away with mutual benefit. This seems an idealized view of markets at their best, it has to be noted that a lot of market contracts and transactions, from employment markets to Global North-Global South commitments, have vastly differential power imbalances between two parties, and one party is in a way 'coerced' to accept what they can in survival mode and definitely without the operative of 'fairness'. These people may enter contracts, even 'smart contracts', under duress. [Maybe he addresses this in later parts of his book, I didn't really read that far] He is an advocate of decentralized autonomous organizations [DAO], which sounds more adapted to hacker cores and covens rather than the nation-states we see today.
However, it is to be noted that Vitalik is not a caricature techno-libertarian. He is cognizant of environmental problems of Bitcoin mining for example, as well as acknowledging of global injustice. I think to do him real justice I have to read his book very carefully to understand the logical reasoning of a highly original mind with a lot of novel proposals about the ordering of the world. I have to admit that for a mind like mine his intellectual propositions are challenging to understand and take apart.
As is common with a lot of his fellow would-be computationalist utopians, Vitalik and his book manifest a strong libertarian, anarchist bent. I don't want to offer just some knee-jerk unthinking criticism of this, but I do have to note that his first assertion in the first couple sentences of this book is that the market, as opposed to the institution, is the fairest way that two people, or groups, come into agreement with each other, on their own volition, and come away with mutual benefit. This seems an idealized view of markets at their best, it has to be noted that a lot of market contracts and transactions, from employment markets to Global North-Global South commitments, have vastly differential power imbalances between two parties, and one party is in a way 'coerced' to accept what they can in survival mode and definitely without the operative of 'fairness'. These people may enter contracts, even 'smart contracts', under duress. [Maybe he addresses this in later parts of his book, I didn't really read that far] He is an advocate of decentralized autonomous organizations [DAO], which sounds more adapted to hacker cores and covens rather than the nation-states we see today.
However, it is to be noted that Vitalik is not a caricature techno-libertarian. He is cognizant of environmental problems of Bitcoin mining for example, as well as acknowledging of global injustice. I think to do him real justice I have to read his book very carefully to understand the logical reasoning of a highly original mind with a lot of novel proposals about the ordering of the world. I have to admit that for a mind like mine his intellectual propositions are challenging to understand and take apart.
November 3, 2022
This is a new book, yeah. But the content isn't - what's been published here is a collection of VB's essays, some of them actually quite old and at least partially outdated.
My thoughts on that:
* I respect VB - he's a freaking genius, and I firmly believe he has great intentions. But his essays are very one-sided, and they typically sound like a sales pitch; at least the first 30% suffer from the same blind spot and naive idealism
* fortunately, the further, the better - essays written after 2019 are much more interesting and dedicated to particular issues; many blind spots are still here (e.g., no realistic assessment of non-fungibility and its limitations), but some considerations (e.g., around DAOs and democratic mechanisms on-chain) are really interesting
* I have no clue why the book is titled "Proof of Stake" - in fact, there's VERY little on it (esp. its unknowns, safety mechanisms, challenges, and risks); the only idea that comes to my mind is that PoS switchover has happened quite recently, so the book with such title will simply sell better ...
I am not sure what was the purpose of the book in the end.
To summarize a big step (which is PoS)? No.
To address criticism and honestly approach challenges and deficiencies? Clearly no.
To build even more hype w/o a pragmatic, feet-on-the-ground assessment? Well, maybe.
It's not that I'd like to bash the book because I'm a crypto skeptic (or even a hater). I think we've all learned a lot due to blockchain, crypto, and the Ethereum ecosystem itself. I also believe in the importance of decentralization in many fields. But I can't stand it when a smart person gets so detached from reality that a reasonable thought stream turns into a fairy tale ...
Pre-2019 essays: 1 star
Post-2019 essays: 4 stars (as decent food for thought)
Altogether: 2.5 stars, rounded to 3
My thoughts on that:
* I respect VB - he's a freaking genius, and I firmly believe he has great intentions. But his essays are very one-sided, and they typically sound like a sales pitch; at least the first 30% suffer from the same blind spot and naive idealism
* fortunately, the further, the better - essays written after 2019 are much more interesting and dedicated to particular issues; many blind spots are still here (e.g., no realistic assessment of non-fungibility and its limitations), but some considerations (e.g., around DAOs and democratic mechanisms on-chain) are really interesting
* I have no clue why the book is titled "Proof of Stake" - in fact, there's VERY little on it (esp. its unknowns, safety mechanisms, challenges, and risks); the only idea that comes to my mind is that PoS switchover has happened quite recently, so the book with such title will simply sell better ...
I am not sure what was the purpose of the book in the end.
To summarize a big step (which is PoS)? No.
To address criticism and honestly approach challenges and deficiencies? Clearly no.
To build even more hype w/o a pragmatic, feet-on-the-ground assessment? Well, maybe.
It's not that I'd like to bash the book because I'm a crypto skeptic (or even a hater). I think we've all learned a lot due to blockchain, crypto, and the Ethereum ecosystem itself. I also believe in the importance of decentralization in many fields. But I can't stand it when a smart person gets so detached from reality that a reasonable thought stream turns into a fairy tale ...
Pre-2019 essays: 1 star
Post-2019 essays: 4 stars (as decent food for thought)
Altogether: 2.5 stars, rounded to 3
October 3, 2022
As a person that is extremely open to alternatives to fiat currency, this essay collection did not convince me that Ethereum will be particularly useful. Given the market cap of altcoins, I was hoping to get a better grasp on their practical applications, but this was not it. Most surprisingly, the author is more establishment/less heterodox than I expected.
Total bummer. There's a lot of noise in the crypto space but almost zero substantive, insightful commentary. But hearing about smart contracts, NFTs, and subverting the government (but not actually subverting the government at all) was deeply underwhelming.
Total bummer. There's a lot of noise in the crypto space but almost zero substantive, insightful commentary. But hearing about smart contracts, NFTs, and subverting the government (but not actually subverting the government at all) was deeply underwhelming.
December 6, 2022
Förstod kanske 1 procent.
October 21, 2023
If you want to cut through all the hype and get rich schemes of cryptocurrency and blockchain, Viitalik Buterin’s book of essays is a set of pure, technical well thought out essays on various potential applications and issues in this space - from fair voting, DAOs, and credible neutrality. Many of these are game theoretic concepts but it’s very interesting to see how the need for fairness, avoiding abuse and decentralization work together. This is not a page turner and the material can be dense for the uninitiated, but you do get the sense that a lot of hard work has been put into this technology and there are people with grander and more noble goals here than get rich quick schemes with NFTs. The challenge is if these goals can eventually win out and help build back the promise and reputation that bad actors like FTX have destroyed.
December 15, 2022
I really like Ethereum and respect Vitalik a ton. However, I wouldn't recommend this 'book' to anyone. It's a collection of previously published essays, which are extremely technical in nature. Even being involved in the crypto space, there was a ton of jargon that Vitalik just assumes you know. For the layperson there's no way they'd understand what is being talked about. Some of the essays deal with such specific problems that they aren't very interesting to many people besides blockchain researchers. That being said there are bright spots, like the second essay introducing Ethereum, and the last one on Soulbound Identity.
One last critique, calling the title Proof of Stake is extremely misleading. There are a few essays related to Proof of Stake, but it's clearly just to take advantage of the popularity of the recent shift to PoS.
I'm excited to see what Vitalik can come up with in the future. I know he's a talented writer, so I think something that's more coherent and a bit less technical could be really interesting.
One last critique, calling the title Proof of Stake is extremely misleading. There are a few essays related to Proof of Stake, but it's clearly just to take advantage of the popularity of the recent shift to PoS.
I'm excited to see what Vitalik can come up with in the future. I know he's a talented writer, so I think something that's more coherent and a bit less technical could be really interesting.
February 25, 2023
The conception of blockchain as a secure distributed digital ledger was genius. The next thought of genius was that blockchain had a near infinite number of uses beyond cryptocurrency and that the best way to realize its potential was to marry it with a Turing-complete scripting language. Vitalik Buterin certainly didn't invent the blockchain and people were doing primitive scripting on top of Bitcoin before he came along, but he is the principal creator and evangelist behind Ethereum, which is the first and most important blockchain to enable the potential of the technology. This volume is a collection of his writings that have little connection with each other, so it's not really a coherent book, but it provides an interesting view into the mind and philosophy of a very, very smart guy who is one of the strongest driving forces behind a technology that has become increasingly important and that I believe will be a big part of our lives for years to come, notwithstanding the recent crash of crypto markets and the jeering comments of naysayers who love to tell us how the emperor has no clothes.
Mr. Buterin has a lot of interesting ideas, and he discusses them freely without hiding the ball. He seems to be a guy who really wants more than anything to use crypto to make a better world, though it's true that he has gotten very rich in the process. There are lots of clever ways that blockchain systems can be subverted, and there are lots of ways that blockchain can cause unintended collateral damage, principally in the energy wasted by mining on chains that use proof of work. He acknowledges this, and much of his writing in this book is about ways to keep blockchains honest and safe for the world. He has become a promoter of proof of stake to replace proof of work. I am skeptical as there are also issues with proof of stake, but in the short run until better solutions are found, I agree that proof of stake makes some sense. I do think that Mr. Buterin's heart is in the right place, though he sometimes feels a little too Ayn Randian for my taste, and I think that he has too much faith in the essential goodness of the crypto community and perhaps at the same time too little faith in the essential goodness of humankind in general.
Mr. Buterin has a lot of interesting ideas, and he discusses them freely without hiding the ball. He seems to be a guy who really wants more than anything to use crypto to make a better world, though it's true that he has gotten very rich in the process. There are lots of clever ways that blockchain systems can be subverted, and there are lots of ways that blockchain can cause unintended collateral damage, principally in the energy wasted by mining on chains that use proof of work. He acknowledges this, and much of his writing in this book is about ways to keep blockchains honest and safe for the world. He has become a promoter of proof of stake to replace proof of work. I am skeptical as there are also issues with proof of stake, but in the short run until better solutions are found, I agree that proof of stake makes some sense. I do think that Mr. Buterin's heart is in the right place, though he sometimes feels a little too Ayn Randian for my taste, and I think that he has too much faith in the essential goodness of the crypto community and perhaps at the same time too little faith in the essential goodness of humankind in general.
January 12, 2023
At last, a book about crypto-currency that isn't written by a fanboy. Buterin wrote both the white paper explaining what became Ethereum and the program itself, which is a great engineering job. But unlike most of the people in the crypto-currency space, he understands that there are hard problems that must be solved, and only some of them admit to technical solutions.
A difficulty is that this is a collection of his essays from various sources, so it doesn't hold together well, and most of the essays were written for the crypto-currency people, so they assume a familiarity most of us don't have. That is alleviated by the footnotes, written by Nathan Schneider. Schneider is another of the few clear thinkers in the space, so he not only tells what obscure references are to, he also makes some very interesting observations. The book would be improved if he did more of both.
There are many points on which I disagree, but it is wonderful to see an intelligent argument for the uses of blockchains. Until I read this book, I was sure that the only uses of blockchains were speculation and money laundering. I still think that, but I'm no longer sure.
A difficulty is that this is a collection of his essays from various sources, so it doesn't hold together well, and most of the essays were written for the crypto-currency people, so they assume a familiarity most of us don't have. That is alleviated by the footnotes, written by Nathan Schneider. Schneider is another of the few clear thinkers in the space, so he not only tells what obscure references are to, he also makes some very interesting observations. The book would be improved if he did more of both.
There are many points on which I disagree, but it is wonderful to see an intelligent argument for the uses of blockchains. Until I read this book, I was sure that the only uses of blockchains were speculation and money laundering. I still think that, but I'm no longer sure.
April 4, 2024
I quite enjoyed this book. it's not as technical as i thought, from a software pov, but much more so from an economic pov, which i didn't mind as i learned a lot. I actually regard it as one of the more relevant and impactful economic books of the 21st century, and should be a follow up to wealth of nations and the communist manifesto. It's very evident that Vitalik has given a lot of thought to concepts and systems like governance, monetary systems, economics, and all related to it. More than that though, he has taken a very logical and engineering approach, and has the technology to back it up. For those familiar with the technicalities of Ethereum, you can see all his thinking reflected in it. Beyond that, he definitely presents some insightful ideas and stories. The book is definitely challenging at times, and can be quite technical, economically, but is worth.
March 6, 2023
This was fine for what it was; useful perhaps as a meta-lens on how some blockchain "thought leaders" changed the focus of their thinking as systems like Ethereum evolved in practice, but the editorial presentation here (with very little or no context for any individual essay) masks the extent to which a lot of these thoughts were reactions to (mostly negative) real-world events as opposed to "pure philosophizing about systems". It was interesting to see some of the circularity in certain themes as well as growing admission / acceptance of governance being a problem that (even general-purpose) blockchains do not solve so much as experience. Probably not a lot of value added by collecting these in a volume as opposed to just reading the original blog posts, though.
January 29, 2023
I study AI and machine learning. I was hoping to learn a bit more about crypto and blockchain.
I like the author’s question “how can we regulate a very complex and smart system with unpredictable emergent properties using a very simple and dumb system whose properties once created are inflexible?”
The discussions about governance and control sounded a bit like an introduction to political science.
I really wanted to come away more excited about the future of crypto. Unfortunately, outside of city coins, charity coins, and dog coins, there wasn't much new.
This book is essentially a collection of blog posts dating back to 2014. Save yourself the $20 and go to vitalik.ca instead.
I like the author’s question “how can we regulate a very complex and smart system with unpredictable emergent properties using a very simple and dumb system whose properties once created are inflexible?”
The discussions about governance and control sounded a bit like an introduction to political science.
I really wanted to come away more excited about the future of crypto. Unfortunately, outside of city coins, charity coins, and dog coins, there wasn't much new.
This book is essentially a collection of blog posts dating back to 2014. Save yourself the $20 and go to vitalik.ca instead.
November 29, 2022
This convinced me that the usages for cryptocurrency are limited but overall is an exciting space. Blockchain as a technology will someday be as integrated into developer tools as making network requests to any other service but that service will have higher guarantees on availability, resilience and transparency.
I liked what Vitalik had to say about superrationality and crypto as a space that is friendly towards revolutions. It's a worthwhile read even if it is dense and sections require a re-read
I liked what Vitalik had to say about superrationality and crypto as a space that is friendly towards revolutions. It's a worthwhile read even if it is dense and sections require a re-read
April 27, 2023
This isn’t a book, but rather a collection of articles that Vitalik has previously written. He’s absolutely brilliant, and viewing DLT from a game theory and psychological perspective is pretty refreshing. I would’ve enjoyed some stiching together of the timelines with some narrative outside of the articles themselves, as this book didn’t provide me too much beyond what I could’ve found from simple google searches on his blog. However, the articles themselves, the narrative, the psychological approach to DLT, and incentive structures are great, so 4 stars.
June 16, 2023
Well, the man is obviously a genius. I read this book in one go on a long flight, maybe to Morocco. This book of essays introduces some of the most well-known concepts in blockchain today, such as DAOs, staking and more. It's extremely technical while also lacing in thoughts on philosophy, politics, and of course - economics - the basis for philosophy, politics, and everything else we study at university. Only gave it 4 instead of 5 stars because some of his ideas were so incomprehensible to me they must've gone right over my head.
September 16, 2023
Based on Butterin's writings over the years, the Proof Of Stake book is a good reminder that web3 is, above all, about the protocol. That there is no, and perhaps never will be, a web3 "killer app," and crypto-currency is one of many, albeit often necessary, features of the protocol. However, the most astonishing of the reminders is how early the idea of a less energy-intensive Proof of Stake consensus mechanism emerged. Completed in 2022, the successful transition to POS is an engineering and governance feat few organizations, if any, can claim to be capable of.
December 24, 2023
A collection of essays by Vitalik Buterin for the readers to follow his train of thoughts and philosophy about the blockchain technology. From early only, his intention on this tech was not for profit, and he his persisted in it. It was his belief that this technology continuously improved for the benefit for everyone. Reading on, I understand more this book was more than just what blockchain, crypto is about. It was Buterin building an environment, with his ideas and guidelines, and we all have a part to contribute in it.
November 2, 2022
Audio book. Missing supplemental graphs, needed for this technical work. Vitalik's blog posts, all in one place; you could find and read them on the web. Great background and philosophy for a different view on crypto (from Bitcoin laissez-faire); a bit obtuse and technical to serve as an intro, though.
November 22, 2022
Many interesting ideas but they feel superficial for the most part. A lot of concepts are thrown to the reader without further explanation. But still interesting to follow the line of thought of Vitalik. If you come with questions about the blockchain technology and what it allows, expect some answers, but shallow.
December 8, 2022
An overall good book consisting of some of Vitalik's old blog posts from the early Bitcoin days as well as some new writing.
While this book does contain a good glossary and footnotes, it would still be a very hard read for anyone not familiar with either Ethereum and Web3 or computer science. However, I recommend for ETHheads.
While this book does contain a good glossary and footnotes, it would still be a very hard read for anyone not familiar with either Ethereum and Web3 or computer science. However, I recommend for ETHheads.
July 6, 2023
An collection of essays on blockchain technology and its applications. Fascinating how accurate most of early Vitalik's ideas turned out to be. This book isn't meant for someone new to crypto, but it helps to understand what blockchain actually is and why it exists. My favorite article which I highly recommend is "The Value of Blockchain Technology".
November 22, 2022
Unlike what they say about the book, I totally felt there was a need for a base and a general understanding about the blockchain ecosystem. That said, it is not a bad book at all: just simply too verbose and technical
December 28, 2022
my only gripe is the selection of posts from those on vitalik's blog, which overly weighted topics I don't care as much about (governance/collusion) and under-weighted topics I care more about (protocol roadmap).
May 3, 2023
Not so much about proof of stake, more a monologue of the author’s thoughts on many things blockchain layer-1 related.
Still interesting, although I would recommend hard copy over audiobook, lots of math and code references.
Still interesting, although I would recommend hard copy over audiobook, lots of math and code references.
September 5, 2023
Not much of a book - it's a collection of blog posts, basically - but beyond that, Buterin just isn't a very interesting thinker. If this is the philosophy of blockchains, it's not much of a philosophy. Which makes sense, really.
November 18, 2023
Vitalik is fantastic at breaking down extremely complex thoughts on social coordination and blockchains. The book itself is a collection of his essays he’s posted online for free, I recommend getting the physical copy just because the cover looks cool.
January 14, 2024
Overly technical, however bottom line block chains are censorship resistant speech. Really the only thing that anyone cares about is price go up, as long as the FED keeps eroding the dollars purchasing power these deflationary networks will continue to gain immense value.
April 12, 2024
Almost every chapter/article is interesting on its own, but it doesn’t really flow as a cohesive book. I’m glad I read it and have it on hand, Vitalik’s thinking and writing is always top tier and spawns new ideas in my head every time. 4 stars
July 7, 2022
Looking for to reading Vitalik’s book ! Paymentspedia.com (Wikipedia for payments)
Read
October 2, 2022This is a collection of essays that are already published on the internet
October 6, 2022
тема слюрів у web3 нерозкрита - 0/10 антислюрових шиба-іну.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews