 Vitalik Buterin in ‘wartime mode’ tops KOL mindshare as he slams ETH critics 
2024-10-28

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has held the top spot in “KOL mindshare” for the last week on Crypto X amid a recent flood of criticism toward the blockchain and the Ethereum Foundation. 
According to Andy, host of the crypto show The Rollup, who cited data from Kaito AI, “wartime mode” Buterin had the highest relative KOL mindshare over the past seven days at 1.69%, followed by Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz at 1.18%. 
Buterin was forced to write a lengthy post on X recently, defending the Ethereum Foundation’s routine sale of Ether ETHUSD. 
Slamming the critics, Buterin explained the sales are used to pay Ethereum developers and researchers in exchange for maintaining the network’s proof-of-stake mechanism, allowing transaction inclusion in less than 30 seconds at low fees, allowing privacy features with zero-knowledge proofs and keeping the network running with no downtime since 2016, asking them to: 
Asked why the Ethereum Foundation doesn’t stake all of its Ether and use the revenue to cover costs instead of selling, Buterin explained the Ethereum Foundation wants to avoid being forced to make an “official choice” in the event of a contentious hard fork.
However, Buterin said the Ethereum Foundation is exploring other methods to engage with staking, including issuing grants in staked Ether which would allow grant recipients to control withdrawal timelines and keep the rewards. 
He also discussed delegating the Ethereum Foundation’s staking responsibilities to other organizations.
Buterin has become more vocal on X of late as Ethereum FUD continues to run rampant.
Negative sentiment has largely stemmed from Ether’s poor price performance — relative to the likes of Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) — Ether’s layer 2 scaling strategy and the falling revenues that have resulted from it on the base layer.
Buterin has been pressing Ethereum’s technical roadmap of late, sharing his insights and recommendations on how the “Merge,” “Surge,” “Scourge” Verge” and “Purge” stages could impact Ethereum’s future.