According to Foresight News , Vitalik Buterin published an article in Farcaster outlining the complex relationship between "institutions" and "cypherpunks," stating that institutions (including governments and corporations) are neither friends nor enemies. Vitalik cited examples such as the EU actively supporting open-source software while simultaneously pushing for chat control (mandatory encryption backdoors); and the US government passing the Patriot Act while also using Signal.
Vitalik believes that the optimal game-theoretic strategy for institutions is to both control their own sphere of influence and resist interference from others. He predicts that in the next era, institutions will more actively reduce their reliance on external trust. In the stablecoin space, this means that asset issuers want the governance focus of the chain to not be overly biased towards a single country, while governments will promote more KYC processes, and privacy tools will continue to improve. Vitalik emphasizes that Ethereum is a censorship-resistant world computer, and cypherpunks do not need to be completely hostile to institutions, but should adopt a strategy of "being open to mutually beneficial cooperation, but actively defending their own interests." The core interest is building financial, social, and identity layers that protect people's autonomy and freedom.
