Ethereum weakens as Vitalik turns to writing novels, ETH crashes amid staff departures

Ethereum founder Vitalik announced a pause on his technical blog to write sci-fi novels about decentralized governance, coinciding with the most severe wave of core member departures at the Ethereum Foundation. (Context: Ethereum Foundation's major transformation: Vitalik releases the CROPS framework, downsizes, and refuses to continue being an ETH seller) (Background: Vitalik urgently calls on ETH whales: The Foundation is just a node, Ethereum's value depends on you) Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has reached a creative turning point. On May 27, he announced on Farcaster that he would pause his long-running technical blog to focus on writing a sci-fi novel exploring decentralized governance. He has completed two chapters, depicting the operational mechanisms of a fictional nation called Veridia. The timing of this move is noteworthy: the Ethereum Foundation is facing its most severe personnel turmoil since its inception, with at least nine core members resigning in 2026, while the price of ETH has fallen below the $2,100 mark. Three days ago, Vitalik posted on X to defend the Foundation's transformation, admitting that the organization is moving toward a "smaller ship" model. Deep Tide Insight: Vitalik Buterin announced on Farcaster on May 27 that he is pausing his long-form blog to write a sci-fi novel themed around decentralized governance, with two chapters already completed. The novel constructs a fictional nation named "Veridia," which implements mechanisms such as quadratic voting, privacy-preserving audits, and AI-assisted decision-making. The timing of this shift is intriguing: at least 9 core members of the Ethereum Foundation have left in 2026, the price of ETH has dropped below $2,100, and Vitalik himself declared three days ago that the Foundation would become a "smaller ship." Ethereum founder Vitalik is no longer writing technical blogs; he is writing a novel... On May 27, Vitalik Buterin posted a brief announcement on Farcaster: "Instead of continuing to write regular blogs, I've decided to try writing some sci-fi about decentralized governance," with a link to the first two chapters completed on his personal website. According to a BeInCrypto report on May 27, this is a rare formal shift in Buterin's public writing career. Over the past decade, his long-form articles have served as primary literature for the evolution of Ethereum's ideology, covering almost all core topics from L2 scaling and DAO governance to quadratic voting. Now, he has chosen to embed these ideas into fictional narratives rather than continuing to write EIP-style technical arguments. This choice itself is not surprising. However, the timing makes it hard not to speculate: Three days ago, he posted a long article on X defending the Foundation's personnel turmoil; two weeks ago, the core leaders of the Foundation's protocol team left en masse; and the price of ETH has fallen by more than 57% from its high of nearly $5,000 in August 2025. We had an AI quickly read the two completed chapters to see what Vitalik is trying to express. The story in the two chapters takes place in a fictional nation called Veridia, where the protagonist, Gladias, is a novice member of the "Order of Steering." This organization is the core executive body of Veridia's governance system, responsible for maintaining a set of precise tax and subsidy rubrics to replace traditional legal prohibitions. Veridia's governance logic is clear: it rarely prohibits anything directly, criminal law is extremely streamlined, and it is replaced by a social governance system driven by tax rate incentives. If a band wants to sing violent songs, no one will arrest them, but they might be classified into a high tax bracket as a result. The specific operation of this system is worth deconstructing, as it is almost a novelized presentation of Vitalik's technical blog posts from the past few years: The "Order of Steering" consists of three types of roles. "Keepers" are responsible for setting and updating tax rubrics; "Sentinels" are responsible for auditing the classification of specific enterprises, with 9-member groups randomly selected via cryptography, voting for the median after three groups deliberate independently; "Acolytes" are backups for Keepers and Sentinels, responsible for low-priority audits, with the system continuously scoring them, and only the top 10% in performance can be promoted. Privacy protection is the underlying logic of the entire system. Members of the Order of Steering wear uniform "privacy robes" to conceal their identities and are strictly forbidden from leaking audit tasks. Anyone can submit guesses through a decentralized cryptographic network to reveal a member's identity—if guessed correctly, the member is fined, and the whistleblower receives half as a bounty. The goal of this mechanism is to prevent bribery