Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Wishes To See NFTs Have More ‘Social Value’

Long Beach(CoinChapter): Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently weighed in on the latest trend in the crypto industry, non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

NFTs have become one of the biggest crazes recently, with digital artists, sports stars, and billionaire enthusiasts all hopping on. Just last month musician Grimes sold her artwork for $6 million. Other stars such as Lindsay Lohan, Mark Cuban, Patrick Mahomes, and Ja Rule have also gotten in on the trend.

In a recent blog post, however, Buterin spoke about the lack of “social values” in the sales of these tokens. Buterin believes these tokens could impact other facets of society should a portion of the revenues be redirected towards charities.

Buterin noted in the blog post that some institutions could mark NFTs with an “official categorization.” These could sanction whether the NFT is, “dedicated to global poverty relief, scientific research, creative arts, local journalism, open-source software development, empowering marginalized communities, or something else?”

He also suggested social media platforms use support to “make NFTs more visible on people’s profiles.” This would allow users to show the “values that they committed.” Buterin added that this “could be combined with (1) to nudge users towards NFTs that contribute to valuable social causes.”

Example, Buterin Is Looking For Occurred With Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

A recent example of what Vitalik Buterin is looking for occurred with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for around $2.9 million which was paid in Ether. The proceeds from the sale will be sent to Give Directly Africa Fund, a charity that helps people in poverty. Buterin simply hopes to see NFTs become more “legitimate” to fund social causes.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk nearly got in on the NFT train as well, but eventually called off the sale. Buterin referenced Musk in his blog post as an example of what he hopes to not see moving forward.

“There is little social value in helping Elon Musk earn yet another $1 million by selling his tweet […] If NFTs simply become a casino that largely benefits already-wealthy celebrities, that would be a far less interesting outcome.”