The Ethereum co-founder suggested that Thiel’s worldview, rooted in surveillance and state power, clashes directly with the values of decentralization and privacy that gave rise to blockchain.
The comments came in a social media post where Buterin shared material highlighting Thiel’s admiration for political theorist Leo Strauss.
Strauss’s philosophy, which champions strong governments and intelligence networks, has shaped much of Thiel’s career – from his time at Stanford’s Review newspaper to his later critiques of democracy itself. To Buterin, those ideas are the opposite of what the cypherpunk movement stands for.
Crypto’s roots have always celebrated resistance to central control, a philosophy that inspired Bitcoin and later Ethereum. By contrast, Thiel has positioned himself in favor of global power structures.
That divergence is why Buterin warned the Ethereum community to be careful about who they allow to wield influence, especially as Thiel holds sizeable stakes in ETH‑focused firms like BitMine Immersion Technologies and ETHZilla.
Buterin’s warning arrives just as Ethereum faces decisions about its own long‑term path. He has previously called for “gradual ossification,” a process that would slow down sweeping protocol changes once scaling upgrades are finished – an approach that echoes Bitcoin’s conservatism. For him, ensuring Ethereum doesn’t bend to the ideologies of powerful backers may be as critical as the technology itself.
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