Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has defended the inclusion of a Hezbollah betting section on Polymarket, a decentralized prediction platform.

In an Oct. 1 post on X, Buterin pointed out that many individuals, including elites, make harmful and inaccurate predictions about conflicts on platforms like Twitter.

He argued that knowing whether people with a financial stake believe an event has a 2% or 50% chance of happening offers valuable insight. This, he believes, helps maintain rationality in the face of misinformation.

According to him:

“It’s not about ‘[making] money from bad stuff happening,’ it’s about creating an environment where speech has consequences (so both unjustified fearmongering and unjustified complacency are punished), without relying on governmental or corporate censors.”

Polymarket’s Hezbollah-related markets allow users to bet on events like whether Israel will invade Lebanon within specific timeframes, if a ceasefire will occur, or if the US military will intervene this year. As of press time, these markets have seen over $7 million in trading volume.

‘Soft caps’

Meanwhile, Chainlink community liaison Zach Rynes raised concerns about the potential dangers of prediction markets, particularly around assassination bets. He suggested that large, influenceable markets could incentivize real-life actions aimed at manipulating outcomes.

Buterin responded that he opposes such markets. He stated that he draws the line at situations where a market acts as a primary incentive for harmful actions, enabling insider trading.

Rynes, however, highlighted that any prediction market on influenceable events could incentivize harmful actions if enough liquidity is involved.

“Even if it wasn’t the original intention, highly liquid markets could subsidize war,” Rynes argued. “Prediction markets aren’t passive observers—they can influence outcomes when they scale.”

In reply, Buterin proposed introducing soft caps on market sizes for platforms like Polymarket. He suggested implementing a fee structure that increases as market size approaches the cap, with all proceeds used to support socially beneficial markets with low organic volume.

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Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, spoke about the Metaverse, emphasizing that it still needs a definition and that, rather than a product, it is instead conceived as a brand. 

Vitalik Buterin: “the Metaverse is poorly defined and is seen as a brand”

During the BUIDL Asia conference in Seoul, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, expressed his views on the metaverse, criticizing its current situation.

Basically, Buterin argues that the metaverse still needs a definition, and is often conceived more as a brand rather than a product. Here are his words:

“The Metaverse is poorly defined and often seen more as a brand than as a product. It is conceived as a virtual universe that everyone can participate in and that is not owned by anyone. It is often associated with virtual reality, where the needs are simpler, as if one wanted a laptop without the laptop.”

Not only that, according to Buterin, people often associate the metaverse with virtual reality (VR), while in reality there is much more. 

Actually, the concept of metaverse refers to a decentralized virtual world, with immersive social environments and experiences that use avatars, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. Even blockchain technology plays an important role, like the bond that unites everything. 

Vitalik Buterin and his suggestions on the Metaverse at the BUIDL Asia conference

Continuing his speech at BUIDL Asia, Buterin then suggested a way that could make the metaverse work correctly. Here are his words:

“For the metaverse to work properly, we need something that combines ‘all the different elements of the virtual world that we already have, including encryption, virtual reality, and some parts of artificial intelligence, in the right way’.”

The co-founder of Ethereum then also included something related to the crypto and blockchain world in his speech.

Basically, Buterin argues that if the abstraction of accounts becomes mainstream, it will have to balance security and convenience, something that Ethereum has not yet done.

X’s abandonment to use Farcaster

Just today, Buterin was also mentioned in the context of social networks. In fact, the “father of Ethereum” seems to have left X, former Twitter, to use Farcaster.

To lift everything up, it would be Elon Musk, owner of X, who questioned the reason for Buterin’s exit from the social platform.

By analyzing Buterin’s behavior, it seems that he has actively participated in Farcaster, an alternative to Twitter focused on the crypto world. 

Not only that, already last February, Buterin had also expressed his appreciation for the crypto-social emphasizing the advantages of the channels compared to Twitter. 

Farcaster is currently riding the wave of success, especially after the launch of Frames, which makes posts on the social crypto interactive, leading to an increase in daily active users and revenue. Not only that, support for Solana addresses has also contributed to the platform’s growth.