Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin are chatting about Ethereum and it's fascinating (2024)

It's no surprise that Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is interested in crypto -- he's tweeted about it several times in the past.

But now, Musk has directly (and publicly, on Twitter) asked Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to explain his vision of the cryptocurrency's future, and it's turning into an interesting discussion.

First, it needs to be said that Musk and Buterin are quite similar in certain regards. Both are very active on Twitter. Both are very smart and love talking about complex concepts that will make your head spin. Both love silly jokes, and they regularly drive their users/customers/shareholders up the wall. In 2017, Buterin (who insists he's just one of many cogs inside Ethereum but is largely seen as the project's leader) said he will leave (Ethereum) if its community doesn't get its act together. Musk angered the SEC to the point that he almost lost his CEO position at Tesla.

And now, finally, these two are chatting on Twitter.

Musk started the conversation in an odd manner, tweeting simply "Ethereum," followed by a tweet indicating he was only kidding.

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But Buterin took the bait, and invited Musk to Ethereum's Devcon conference in October.

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Musk replied by asking what should be developed on Ethereum (unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is more than a cryptocurrency; it's a smart contract platform that allows developers to create decentralized apps -- dApps -- that live on Ethereum's blockchain).

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Buterin replied by listing some of his ideas as well as some projects that are actively being developed on Ethereum right now. This includes decentralized finance services, identity services, public registries, micropayment-based content services, among others. Check out the entire thread here.

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So far, Musk hasn't replied to these. But who knows, by the end of the day, these two could be starting a new company together -- stranger things have happened.

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