Vitalik: Institutions and cypherpunks are not absolute enemies; a balance must be struck between cooperation and autonomy.

PANews reported on January 24th that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the relationship between "institutions" and "cypherpunks" is complex and needs to be properly understood. Institutions (including governments and corporations) are neither absolute friends nor absolute enemies. Vitalik emphasized the need to be open to mutually beneficial cooperation while actively protecting one's own interests. In this context, the core task of the Ethereum community is to build a financial, social, and identity layer to protect people's autonomy and freedom.

The optimal strategy for institutions in this game is to strengthen control within manageable limits while resisting external intrusion. This makes them often more focused on data sovereignty and security than ordinary users. Vitalik predicts that institutions (including businesses and governments) will more actively reduce their reliance on external trust and have greater security for their operations.

In the stablecoin space, this means that EU asset issuers want their blockchain governance to be less concentrated in the US, and vice versa (similar situations exist in other countries). Governments will push for more KYC processes, but at the same time, privacy tools will be improved as cypherpunks work to enhance their performance. Institutions want control over their wallets, and even over their staking when staking ETH.