Charles Hoskinson stunned by the number of ETH staked by Vitalik Buterin

In the eyes of Vitalik Buterin, staking all of his ETH would be a mistake. That’s why he only stakes a tiny portion of his holdings. A choice that has actually shocked the crypto community.

The surprising details of Vitalik Buterin’s ETH staking

Vitalik Buterin isn’t just anyone: he co-founded the Ethereum blockchain with Gavin Wood, Anthony Di Iorio, Jeffrey Wilcke and co. in 2015. This initiative made him a cryptocurrency billionaire, despite his holdings dwindling against the backdrop of the bear market.

No matter how much cryptocurrency he has left, Vitalik Buterin is far from poor. He reportedly has a large number of SHIBs in his portfolio, and certainly ETH in large quantities.

Recently, Cointelegraph reported on the quantity of ether stored by Vitalik Buterin. Buterin reportedly gave details on the June 29 episode of the Bankless podcast.

Vitalik stakes only a fairly small portion of his $ETH because meeting his bar for safety is too complicated.@IOHK_Charles what % of your $ADA is staked? #Cardano pic.twitter.com/hlq6LELDpF

— St₳kΣ with Pride 🌈 (@StakeWithPride) June 29, 2023

“Vitalik only stakes a tiny portion of his ETH because meeting his security standard is too complicated. @IOHK_Charles, what’s your ADA percentage?”

How strange! But the Ethereum co-founder has a “bigger reason”: ETH staking would be handicapped by the absence of multi-signature wallets.

“The main reason I don’t stake my entire ETH holdings, but rather a tiny fraction, is that if you stake your ETH, the keys that allow access to it must be public on an online subsystem. For security reasons, this must be a Multisig. Multisig for staking still seems difficult to set up; it’s complicated in several ways,” he explains.

In other words, the man behind Ethereum lacks confidence in the infrastructure for ETH staking.

Charles Hoskinson offended

Obviously, such comments are an embarrassment for the crypto community. Charles Hoskinson says he’s “at a loss for words” on hearing the news.

I had to listen to this a few times. I'm just at a loss for words. All of our Ada is staked. Guess what that's how it's supposed to be for a properly designed Proof of Stake protocol. https://t.co/ye6va1DH06

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) June 29, 2023

Many crypto-enthusiasts agreed with the co-founder of Cardano and Ethereum.

Some did not hesitate to use rather harsh language to express their displeasure. A founder who doesn’t want his own product is akin to “Walt Disney not going to Disneyland”.

pic.twitter.com/MxJnG5ovsC

— St₳kΣ with Pride 🌈 (@StakeWithPride) June 29, 2023

Others questioned Ethereum’s level of decentralization. In other words, Vitalik Buterin knows that his blockchain is not centralized at all.

As a reminder, Ethereum currently has 643,000 validators who have wagered over 20.5 million ETH. This multiplicity of validators is a source of concern for some researchers associated with this popular blockchain. In a way, Vitalik Buterin has slightly tarnished his image by making this admission.