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In today’s newsletter:

  • Survival first, winning later: Vitalik Buterin to crypto exchanges
  • MeitY's AI model vetting redux 
  • EloElo’s $80 million consumer AI play

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Survival first, winning later: Vitalik Buterin to crypto exchanges

The next two years could be make-or-break for crypto exchanges, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin told us in an exclusive interview. 

  • Amid rising hacks, he said exchanges must prioritise survival over market share. 

What’s happening? In just the last two years, the crypto industry witnessed its biggest hacking incidents – a $1.5 billion security breach at Bybit in 2025 and a $6.3 billion heist in Binance last week.

  • Buterin said the biggest crypto hacks over the past 18 months have increasingly exploited vulnerabilities in user interfaces and centralised components, rather than the underlying blockchain technology.

What’s Buterin saying:

  • Exchanges and custodians must find their “bunker mode” and prioritise security over growth. Buterin expects Binance to do the same.
  • Persistent hacks could push regulators to tighten oversight and hold companies more accountable. Losing assets to North Korean hackers, he argues, is effectively “donating” to them after a point.
  • AI and formal verification could dramatically speed up the blockchain platform’s ongoing ‘Lean Ethereum’ transformation roadmap, compressing work that might otherwise have taken 20 years. 
  • Layer 2 networks that merely replicate Ethereum are "boring", Buterin said, arguing that they need to offer something different.

Ethereum’s India plans: Buterin said India's young, curious developer community is exploring meaningful Ethereum use cases, particularly prediction markets.

  • But Ethereum’s growth and adoption will ultimately depend on Indians, with the blockchain platform only offering technical support and not meddling to add more developers to the chain.

Read the full interview (Prefer video? Watch it here)

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