Wall Street is a huge threat to Ethereum! Vitalik: They are users, we are "professional users".

Wall Street institutions hold over 10% of ETH and demand adjustments to the core protocol, sparking discussions about developers leaving. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Wall Street is the “user” while blockchain users are “professional users,” advocating for maintaining network decentralization under capital pressure. (Background: V God warns that Bitcoin will crack in 2028: it will happen before the U.S. elections, and Ethereum needs to upgrade quantum defense within four years.) (Supplementary background: V God’s new look “speaking out against FTX”: Ethereum is completely opposite to them; the essence of blockchain is that you don’t need to trust anyone.) At the end of 2025, when the Trump administration loosens crypto regulations, Wall Street will no longer just be a guest of Ethereum (Ethereum). Institutions like BlackRock and BitMine collectively hold over $18 billion in ETH, accounting for about 8%-10% of the total supply. This level of funding quickly elevates “holding users” to “decision-making hands” in the ecosystem. Vitalik is very worried about this power shift. The difference between them and us On the 19th, Bankless co-founder released Vitalik's recent interview content in a post on X, where he was asked about the relationship between Wall Street and Ethereum. Vitalik replied: “Wall Street is a user of Ethereum, and we are 'professional users.'” V God reaffirms Wall Street's threat to the free internet. Source: DL News At the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires, Vitalik discussed with Tor co-founder Roger Dingledine, stating that if Ethereum continues to accumulate holdings by BlackRock, it will face two major threats. First, V God indicated that “it would be easy to drive others away.” Implicitly, this means that developers on Ethereum would choose to leave this ecosystem because they do not want to work for Wall Street. The core spirit of Ethereum remains a transparent, permissionless infrastructure system. If Ethereum loses these developers, it will lose the decentralized professional skills and identity recognition. Second, V God believes that institutional conscious participation will undermine the choices of ordinary crypto users. He gave an example on the spot: Wall Street wants a 150-millisecond block confirmation time, which sounds attractive for high-frequency trading institutions, but for ordinary users, 150 milliseconds only benefits those who are in New York or connected to validators in financial centers with ultra-low latency; otherwise, this trading speed will exclude ordinary traders. Ethereum built for Wall Street becomes Ethereum that only Wall Street can use. V God brings the topic back to the purpose of Ethereum: “A global network and protocol that anyone can use, permissionless, trustless, and censorship-resistant.” The difficulty of Ethereum faction logic The most challenging aspect of Ethereum is that tokens are traded in a free secondary market, and it is actually very reasonable for Wall Street to “vote with money.” Once Ethereum moves toward popular markets, it will inevitably face participation from capital forces, and the dispersion of control and routes is an unavoidable situation. This is the result of centralized participation in decentralization; one could also say that as long as blockchain product results are substantial, there will always be larger users “harvesting midway.” According to BitMine's published node layout, institutions have intervened in core code discussions, demanding the introduction of “enterprise-level features” and shortening block times to facilitate high-frequency trading. Vitalik Buterin welcomes the influx of capital but simultaneously raises risks; if the operational threshold is pushed higher, personal nodes will be excluded, and decentralization will lose participation potential. Previously, in October, Ethereum Foundation Geth team key member Péter Szilágyi chose to resign, indicating that the decision-making power of the Ethereum Foundation has tilted towards “the check writers,” while the technical debt of the original goals continues to accumulate. Extended reading: Ethereum core developer Péter Szilágyi angrily criticized: ETH Foundation's compensation is unfair, power is concentrated around Vitalik Buterin… Related reports Former Ethereum Foundation researcher: Wall Street needs decentralization, while the crypto community does not. U.S. OCC greenlights: Banks can hold crypto for Gas fees, naming Ethereum (ETH). <Wall Street is a huge threat to Ethereum! Vitalik: They are users, we are 'professional users'> This article was first published in BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news medium.