Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues it's the application layer, not the infrastructure layer, where the project needs "good social philosophy"

The app layer is where developers build decentralized applications on top of Ethereum's base infrastructure and where they make decisions about how these programs operate.

In a comment on the social media platform Warpcast, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argued that it’s Ethereum’s application layer, not its infrastructure layer, that needs “good social philosophy” the most.

The app layer is where developers build decentralized applications on top of Ethereum’s base infrastructure and where they make decisions about how these programs operate. These programs are then used by the broader crypto community.

In an April 12 post on the social media platform Warpcast, Buterin was responding to a user’s argument that Ethereum needs a new generation of developers to be brought in and infused with the spirit of the founders to renew itself. He argued that it’s the app layer that needs this more.

“Apps are 80% special purpose. What apps we have depends heavily on what ideas people had of what Ethereum apps, and Ethereum as a whole, are there to do for the world. And so having good ideas on this topic out there becomes crucially important,” Buterin said.

In comparison, Buterin says a programming language like C++ may not be as influenced by the creator’s ideology, as it is a general-purpose tool that doesn’t have much surface to be made worse or improved by social philosophy.

“Imagine that C++ had been made by a totalitarian racist fascist. Would it be a worse language? Probably not. It would still be a useful tool, and people could use it for good or bad purposes in about equal measure. But if it had been made worse, it would be because of the totalitarian racist fascist’s incompetence, not his malice.

Ethereum’s layer 1 is similar to an extent, argued Buterin, although it is more exposed to philosophical influence, citing its move to proof-of-stake (PoS) and supporting light clients as examples.

“Someone who doesn’t believe in decentralization would not add light clients, or good forms of account abstraction. Someone who doesn’t mind energy waste would not spend half a decade moving to PoS, but the Ethereum Virtual Machine opcodes might have been roughly the same either way. So Ethereum is perhaps 50% general-purpose.

Apps with good social philosophy vs bad

In a follow-up post, Buterin told a user that in his opinion, crypto privacy protocol Railgun, Web3 social protocol Farcaster, decentralized prediction market Polymarket and messenger app Signal are examples of apps that have a good social philosophy.

“You build apps that do the right thing behind the scenes by default. Signal is a reasonably good example of this, although it has significant flaws of its own. Farcaster is also a good example of this.

On the other hand, Buterin said that the memecoin platform Pump.fun, the collapsed crypto ecosystem Terra, its native token LUNA, and the collapsed crypto exchange FTX are examples of bad social philosophy.

“The differences in what the app does stem from differences in beliefs in developers’ heads about what they are here to accomplish.