By Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has recently spoken out about the “drift away from decentralization” in the crypto space. In an interview with crypto news site Decrypt, Buterin blamed the rising transaction fees associated with the increasing popularity of blockchain technology as the main cause.
Buterin believes that because transaction fees are essentially a “tax” on the cost of using cryptocurrency, as fees rise, it cuts down the incentive to use crypto for everyday use cases such as purchases and payments. This then leads to the centralization of activities, as larger entities are able to pay the higher fees easily.
Buterin noted that while some of the larger projects have made attempts to combat these problems with their own upgrades, it’s not enough. He believes that developers need to come up with better solutions to make it easier and cheaper for mass adoption of decentralized technologies. Buterin suggests that projects could introduce their own virtual machine, or even think about the idea of a “stable decentralized chain”, something similar to EOS–which he believes could be the solution to these higher fees.
Buterin believes it’s important to pay attention to the cost of using decentralized technologies in order to prevent too much centralization. He emphasizes that the rising fees are a symptom of a larger problem, and that developers need to be proactive in finding solutions before it’s too late.
