Vitalik Buterin talks dogecoin, analyzes Elon Musk’s crypto strategy, and plays down crypto’s ability to change the world, in a new interview. Here are the 10 best quotes.

• Ethereum cocreator Vitalik Buterin talked about all things crypto in a Lex Fridman podcast.
• He told the AI researcher that governments can’t ban blockchains but can marginalize crypto.
• He discussed Elon Musk’s crypto strategy and the response to his burning shiba inu coins.

Ethereum cocreator Vitalik Buterin revealed that he is open to a collaboration between ethereum and dogecoin, analyzed the thought process behind Elon Musk’s crypto strategy, and said he does not believe bitcoin can save the world, speaking on artificial-intelligence researcher Lex Fridman’s podcast this week.

In the three-hour conversation, the pair also discussed Buterin’s burning of almost half of all shiba inu coins, regulatory pressures in the crypto industry, and nonfungible tokens.

Here are Buterin’s 10 best quotes from the podcast, lightly edited for clarity:

1. “I definitely don’t think ethereum is opposed to dog coins. I kind of want the fans to feel like ethereum is – at least a little bit – in spirit itself a dog coin.” – on whether he fears dogecoin
2. “If doge wants to somehow bridge to ethereum, and then people can trade doge thousands of times a second inside a loop ring, then that would be amazing.” – on the potential for collaboration between dogecoin and ethereum
3. “There’s a lot more wrong with the world than just money. I’m not one of these people who thinks that if you get rid of fiat currency and you replace it with cryptocurrency, then suddenly wars are going to go away.”
4. “So you reduce the government’s revenue by 10%. If the government is that evil, which portion of its expenses is it going to take that 10% from? Is it going to stop bombing people in Afghanistan, or is it going to cut welfare? If you think its the first, you have a very optimistic view of the government.” – on the effects of cutting into governments’ revenue as a consequence of replacing fiat currencies with cryptocurrency
5. “It’ll just become and be incorporated in the same way as happened with the internet.”- on the ideal outcome for the acceptance of blockchain by society and governments
6. “I don’t think governments have the ability to ban crypto to the extent of just completely preventing blockchains from existing. But they definitely have the ability to really marginalize it.” – on the worst-case scenario for government regulation

7. “You would make a mistake if you were to ascribe too much sophisticated malevolence or any deep intentionality to the whole process. He’s just a human being, and he likes dogs just like I like dogs.” – on Elon Musk’s crypto strategy and support for dogecoin
8. “I’m sure that if they stay in the cryptocurrency system at all, then they have to at some point.” – on whether Tesla and SpaceX will consider ethereum in the future

9. “Obviously, there’s parallel universes in which I did better. But at the same time, there’s also lots of parallel universes where – because I hesitated more and tried to spend more time thinking I missed the opportunity.” – on whether he handled donating shiba inu tokens in the right way

10. “For every poster that was saying ‘No, no – why did Vitalik rug pull on us? His wallet was supposed to be a burn address,’ there were 10 people that were, like, ‘Oh, I thought I was just in this because it’s a fun pyramid-gambling thing, but instead I ended up being part of this great public good thing for humanity, and that’s even more amazing’. The amount of that that I got was very impressive. So all in all, I think the dog people did great.” – on the reaction of the shiba inu community to his burning and donating coins