• Buterin argued the crypto community not be afraid of criticism and controversy.
• According to him, Ethereum will focus on real-world issues and not million-dollar ape-related NFTs.

Vitalik Buterin, the lead Ethereum developer, has criticized NFT billionaires for not investing in the real world. According to Buterin, cryptocurrency should not be used to play with million-dollar pictures of monkeys. Rather, people should focus on achieving meaningful results in the real world.

One positive aspect of the situation over the past three weeks is that it has reminded many people in the crypto market that, ultimately, the purpose of cryptocurrencies is not to play with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it is to do things that achieve meaningful results, in the real world,

According to him, Ethereum will focus on real-world issues and not million-dollar ape-related NFTs. In this case, the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) collection is the likely reference. Moreover, Yuga Labs, the parent company, has announced a $450 million funding round at a valuation of $4 billion. Notably, Yuga Labs recently acquired NFT projects CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs. Consequently, it has the most expensive NFT portfolio worth millions.

Related: Yuga Labs accused of market manipulation after purchase of the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections

According to Buterin, the Russia-Ukraine crisis should be taken with utmost importance. As a result, the cryptocurrency community should pool resources to stop bleeding in the region.

Buterin argued the crypto community not be afraid of criticism and controversy. Moreover, it is by the unity that the crypto market has grown exponentially.

“I’d rather Ethereum offend some people than turn into something that doesn’t mean anything,” he added.

Buterin’s view of NFTs

To begin with, Buterin is just a cog in the Ethereum ecosystem. There are other stakeholders, who perhaps share the same thoughts as him. Nevertheless, his criticism of NFT is biased since the Ethereum network is the largest beneficiary. Moreover, the Ethereum ecosystem is the leading network with DeFi, particularly those focused on NFT including exchanges.

Institutional investors have flocked to Web3 and the race is on. For instance, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram will soon enable users to display and possibly mint NFTs. Additionally, Reddit began testing similar features earlier this year. Meanwhile, Twitter has made significant investments in crypto features. 

Notably, Spotify, Airbnb, and payments giant Stripe are also exploring Web3.

Microsoft ventured into Web3 by joining a $450 million fundraise for Ethereum-development firm Consensys. 

ApeCoin’s March 16 debut changed the entire NFT and metaverse scope of view. Although it came with huge volatility, the asset is ranked 62 by market capitalization according to CoinGecko. At the time of reporting, the asset exchanged hands around $12.03, up 13 percent in the past day.

With all these developments, particularly from institutional investors, Ethereum competitors are likely to pop up easily. Thereby explaining Buterin’s thoughts on NFTs and real-world use cases.