久违了的极客故事

□吴 晨

## Morning

维塔利克的创业故事“很硅谷”。他是一个“90后”（1994生人），生在俄罗斯，后与父母移民到加拿大。他也是一个高中时17 岁就迷上比特币的年轻人，20岁出头就写出《以太坊白皮书》，希望用世界计算机来解决全球问题的理想者。这是一个久违了的年轻“极客”。但维塔利克与传统的硅谷创业者又有着显著的不同：他并没有像扎克伯格或贝索斯那样创建一个富可敌国的企业帝国。以太坊构建的是一场互联网的新浪潮，而Web3.0所代表的去中心化自治组织，也并不需中心化的“大脑”。虽他本人的数字货币资产蔚为大观，但他更像是一位布道者，不断推动基于区块链、数字货币、智能合约的数字基础设施建设，以求在其之上延伸更为实际的、可以替代传统业务的解决方案。

Vitalik’s business story is “very Silicon Valley.” He is a “90-year-old” born in Russia and emigrated to Canada with his parents. He is also a 17-year-old in high school who was obsessed with Bitcoin and who wrote the “Brain” at the age of 20, hoping to use the world’s computers to solve global problems. This is a long-overdue young “absolute” customer. But Vitalik is significantly different from the traditional Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: he does not create a rich empire like Zuckerberg or Besos. It is built on a new wave of Internet, and Web3.0 represents a decentralized self-governing organization that does not need a central “brain”. Although his digital monetary assets are significant, he is more like a sermonist, promoting digital infrastructure based on regional chains, digital money, and smart contracts, with a view to extending on them more practical solutions that can replace traditional business.

2020年，我在一次高山大学组织的在线论坛上主持过一次维塔利克参与的区块链和加密货币研讨会，镜头那边的维塔利克是一个腼腆的年轻人，背景是新加坡一家青年旅社的高低床。

In 2020, at an online forum organized by the University of High Mountain, I hosted a block chain and encrypted currency seminar involving Vitalik, a young man from the lens of Vitalik, a high bed in a youth hostel in Singapore.

《点对万物：以太坊与未来数字金融》是出身阿根廷的彭博社记者撰写的以太坊传记，维塔利克无疑是主角，但这本书绝不是在为他唱独角戏。强调阿根廷是因为这个国家饱受高通胀和多次汇兑危机的困扰，阿根廷人对数字货币可能带来的抵御通胀和不受国家干涉有着天然的敏感。强调这不是一本关于维塔利克的传记也很重要，因为以太坊作为最活跃的区块链社群和平台——如果可以这么去定义它的话——是一群人努力的结果，也得益于更多人在这一平台上不断探索解决真实世界问题的应用。

Point to Everything: Ether and Future Digital Finance is an Ethermian biography written by the Argentine-born Bloomberg journalist, and Vitalik is undoubtedly the leading actor, but this book is not a monologue for him. The emphasis is on Argentina’s natural sensitivity to the potential of digital money to be resistant to inflation and to State interference. It is also important to stress that this is not a biography of Vitalick, because Taipa as the most active regional chain community and platform – if this is to be defined – is the result of a group of people’s efforts and thanks to more people constantly exploring the applications of this platform to solve real world problems.