Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin: ETH Is a Solution to Bitcoin’s Limited Functionality

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has stated he was trying to solve Bitcoin’s (BTC) limited functionality with the creation of Ethereum, according to an interview with Business Insider published on Feb. 28.

During the interview, Buterin compared Bitcoin to a plot key calculator, stating that it does one thing and it does it well, while he believes Ethereum is more like a smartphone, which can run apps capable of doing almost everything, including acting as a plot key calculator.

Buterin concluded by defining his solution in a single sentence:

“So [what I did is] basically taking that same kind of [smartphone] idea of increasing the power of the system by making it more general purpose and applying it to blockchains.”

As Cointelegraph reported in February, Buterin has disclosed that his crypto investments are virtually exclusively devoted to the Ethereum network, with his total non-ETH holdings — comprised of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Zcash (ZEC) — accounting for less than 10 percent of the value of his Ethereum holdings.

Also, in December last year, Buterin had declared that future blockchains with sharding based on proof-of-stake will be “thousands of times more efficient,” and that non-financial applications enabled by cheaper transactions will become “a bigger part of the story.”