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Welcome to rationally speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

I'm your host, Julia Galef, and today's guest is Vitalik Boutterin.

He's the creator of Ethereum, an open-source blockchain platform, and its corresponding currency, Ether, which is the second biggest cryptocurrency in the

world after Bitcoin. Vitalik came up with Ethereum eight years ago when he was 19, and the year

before that he co-founded Bitcoin Magazine, the oldest publication devoted to cryptocurrency.

But the reason that I started following Vitalik a few years ago and reading his blog is because

he's also a really sharp and insightful thinker about politics, economics, rationality, how to

improve the world. And even though I'm not that into crypto myself, I came to really enjoy

reading Vitalik's public communications as a leader of Ethereum, because as we

talk about in our conversation, I find his leadership style refreshingly nuanced and intellectually

honest. So that is one of a wide range of things we talk about in this episode, and I hope you

enjoy it. Here's my conversation with

Vitalik Boudarin. Well, Vitalik, let's start by talking about your most recent blog post,

which is about something I've been personally very interested in recently, that is why

...