Vitalik: Ethereum should become the "cash backing" in the digital age

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently posted on the social platform X, offering insights into the development trend of a cashless society and the role of Ethereum. He pointed out:"Nordic countries are abandoning their cashless society initiatives because their centralized implementation of the concept is too fragile. Cash as a fallback is particularly necessary. Ethereum needs to be resilient and private enough to reliably play this role."

This comment has attracted widespread attention from the crypto community and the financial community, highlighting his deep thinking on the importance of "decentralization and privacy protection" in the future financial system.

The vulnerability of a cashless society is exposed

Nordic countries, represented by Sweden and Norway, have always been the most active regions in the world in promoting a "cashless society". However, as the risks brought about by technological dependence are exposed (such as system failures, cyber attacks, power outages, etc.), people are beginning to re-examine the security and sustainability of a fully digital payment system. Once the electronic payment system fails, a society lacking cash will become extremely vulnerable.

Buterin pointed out that this is precisely why "cash as a fallback" is still irreplaceable - it is a risk-resistant infrastructure.

Ethereum's role: the successor of digital "cash"?

Vitalik advocates that Ethereum should develop sufficient resilience and privacy to become an effective alternative to cash-like systems in the digital age. In other words, he advocates building Ethereum into a censorship-resistant, trustless, and offline interactive financial protocol layer, so that it can operate like cash in extreme situations.

This means several key directions:

Improve on-chain privacy: introduce technologies such as zk-SNARKs and coin-mixing protocols to protect user transaction privacy;

Enhance censorship resistance and usability: through distributed node networks, light clients and off-chain solutions, ensure that it can still be used in extreme environments;

Support offline payment and identity anonymity: designs such as Layer 2 networks and account abstraction, explore user experiences similar to "digital cash".

Significance of viewpoint: Social responsibility of decentralized finance

Buterin's speech is not only a technical suggestion, but also an initiative at the social system level: he advocates that the digital currency system cannot be just a product of technological progress, but must also assume the role of public infrastructure at critical moments - just like cash, it must become the underlying guarantee of social trust and resilience.

In today's world where the world is increasingly dependent on centralized digital payment systems, decentralized protocols such as Ethereum, if they can balance privacy and availability, may become the dual foundation of "free finance" and "crisis backup" in the future.

Vitalik's speech reflects a core point of view: a truly mature financial system should not exclude "backup", but should maintain the "resilience" and "freedom" on which human society depends in the process of digitalization. If Ethereum can evolve in this direction, its value may surpass the technical platform and become the "anchor of freedom" in the digital age.