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Bitcoin is currently at the center of a debate after Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer raised concerns about the network’s long-term security and mining economy. In a recent X post shared on May 10, 2026, the crypto founder argued that BTC could eventually face a serious challenge tied to declining miner incentives. His comments have quickly sparked discussions on what this could mean for Bitcoin’s future stability.

Bitcoin Mining Pressure Builds

The warning from the crypto founder centered on a growing concern that has followed Bitcoin for years but is now attracting renewed attention as block rewards continue to shrink. Bitcoin miners currently secure the network by verifying transactions and maintaining the blockchain through energy-intensive mining operations. In return, miners receive newly issued BTC alongside transaction fees.

However, Bitcoin’s halving system cuts mining rewards in half every four years. While this system helps control BTC’s supply and supports its scarcity, it also reduces the amount miners earn over time. Sirer warned that this could eventually create a difficult situation for BTC where mining rewards are no longer enough to cover the high costs of electricity, equipment, and mining operations.

The concern becomes more significant because Bitcoin’s security depends heavily on miner participation. If mining becomes less profitable over time, smaller mining firms could struggle to survive, potentially forcing some operators out of the market. This could reduce competition among miners and increase centralization risks, something critics have warned about for years.

The Avalanche founder also pointed toward a future where transaction fees may eventually become the main source of income for miners. However, that could create another challenge if fees become too expensive for everyday users or fail to generate enough revenue to maintain strong network security.

Crypto Founder Suggests New Direction For BTC

As discussions around the warning grew, attention also turned to the solution proposed by the crypto founder. Sirer suggested that BTC could eventually use an extra transaction layer connected to Avalanche technology before transactions are fully completed on the Bitcoin network.

The goal of the idea is to reduce pressure on Bitcoin’s current system while helping transactions move through a faster and more efficient verification process. Even though the technology behind it is complex, supporters believe it could help BTC handle future challenges linked to declining mining rewards and growing network demands.

However, the proposal may not easily gain support from the BTC community. Many long-time BTC supporters are known for opposing major changes to the network, especially when outside technologies or different consensus systems are involved.

Even so, the warning highlights a broader concern already being discussed across the crypto industry. Some investors believe Bitcoin’s increasing price and future transaction activity could eventually solve the problem naturally. Others believe declining miner rewards could become a serious long-term issue if solutions are not presented early enough.

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Arthur Hayes has a theory about what controls the Bitcoin price. Speaking during Consensus Miami 2026, Hayes positions that Bitcoin’s value is mostly propped up by the expansion of the fiat money supply across the United States and the rest of the world.

Bitcoin Price Still Comes Down To Liquidity

Speaking at Consensus Miami 2026, the BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom chief investment officer made a case that most in the audience had likely not expected: that Bitcoin’s entire value proposition rests on a single variable. Interestingly, the crypto industry does not have a control over this variable.

Hayes told the Consensus Miami 2026 audience that the only thing that matters when assessing Bitcoin’s fair value or future price is how many units of fiat currency exist today, how many will exist in the future, and at what pace that fiat is being created. “The more money that is printed in the US and around the world, the more value that Bitcoin will have in fiat currencies,” Hayes said. “And it’s this liquidity part of the equation that really drives the price of BTC and not anything to do with politics.”

The throughline of his entire appearance at Consensus Miami 2026, captured in a YouTube recording of the session, was a consistent refusal to let political and regulatory opinions substitute for what he views as the only honest explanation of Bitcoin’s price movement.

Bitcoin has spent 2026 moving through a difficult macro environment, with traders reacting to Federal Reserve expectations, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, and ETF flows. However, Hayes’ outlook places these all as secondary to a larger monetary cycle where more currency creation increases BTC’s value when measured against those same currencies.

A Price Target Correction

Hayes also appeared to walk back the idea that he is still committed to a $500,000 BTC price target. When asked about the level, he pushed back, saying his forecasts change and that his current target is closer to $125,000. “When did I ever say $500,000? I’m constantly changing my forecasts. Right now my target is closer to $125,000,” Hayes said. “What does Bitcoin need to go up? More money printing. It’s that simple.”

A move to $125,000 would still need a major rally from Bitcoin’s recent trading range. At the time of writing, BTC is trading at $81,527, reaching its strongest level since late January, but it is still 35% below its late-2025 all-time high above $126,000.

Perhaps the most interesting of Hayes’ Consensus appearance was reserved for advocates of crypto regulation. According to the Hayes, Bitcoin’s value comes precisely from its existence outside the regulatory apparatus, and that proposals like the CLARITY Act work directly against the properties that make the cryptocurrency valuable. 

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Bhusri’s return to the top job at the human resources software company reflects the belief that only a founder with billions on the line and a personal legacy at stake has the unique vision and authority to steer the ship through difficult waters. And with majority voting control plus operational authority as CEO, Bhusri will have more power to make any difficult changes he sees necessary. A close look at Bhusri’s compensation package however suggests that it’s also an acknowledgement of just how bleak the investor prognosis is for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. 

To lure Bhusri back to the CEO job he left two years ago, Workday is giving him a $138.8 million pay package comprised of cash and performance-based and restricted stock. More than half of the package, $75 million, only pays out if Bhusri can hit a series of undisclosed stock price targets over the next five years. Perhaps more telling is the other half: Roughly $60 million in restricted stock requires only that Bhusri stick around at Workday for the next four years, with no performance targets whatsoever.

With Wall Street bearish on SaaS companies, Workday is effectively recognizing the deep skepticism that even its founder-savior will face in successfully making the transition into the AI age.

The AI panic rippling through enterprise software stocks for the past couple of weeks has helped wipe out some $40 billion in value at Workday, slashing its market cap in half from an all-time high of $80 billion. The stock has fallen 51% to roughly $150 a share from an intraday peak of $311.28 less than two years ago. This year alone, the stock is down 29% amid the broad bloodbath subsuming the SaaS industry. Other SaaS companies, including Salesforce, ServiceNow, and HubSpot, have all suffered double-digit declines in their stock prices.

“AI is reshaping how work gets done and represents an even bigger transformation than the shift to cloud 20 years ago,” Bhusri wrote in a LinkedIn post the day after the news of the leadership change. “Just as we helped redefine enterprise software when we founded Workday, I believe we can once again lead the way in this AI era.” 

There’s a lot at stake for Bhusri, even if he weren’t taking back the reins. As executive chair at the SaaS giant for the past two years, Bhusri has seen half the value of his more than 8-million share ownership stake nosedive from an all-time-high value of $2.6 billion in 2024, to about $1.3 billion. That’s a wealth wipeout on paper of roughly $1.3 billion in less than two years.

20 years of decision making data and 68% voting control

Bhusri may have more hands-on experience leading a company than the average founder. Bhusri founded Workday with best friend and mentor Duffield in 2005 before the two joined forces as co-CEOs in 2009. In the years since, Bhusri served as sole CEO after ceding the chairmanship to Duffield before sharing it again in August 2020 with then co-CEO Luciano “Chano” Fernandez. After Fernandez announced his departure in December 2022, the board appointed ex-Sequoia Capital partner Carl Eschenbach to serve alongside Bhusri before Bhusri stepped into the executive chair role in February 2024. Now, with Eschenbach out as CEO, Bhusri is back in the saddle as CEO and chairman. 

As the software company turns the page, it has 20 years of decision making data and process history that give the opportunity to offer enterprise grade intelligence to large customers, Bhusri wrote in his post. 

Workday’s success is highly dependent on Bhusri. The company operates with a dual-class share structure, which means shares sold on the open market, Class A shares, carry a single vote apiece, while Class B shares are worth 10 votes each. Between cofounder Dave Duffield and Bhusri and their affiliates and a voting rights agreement that dates back to Workday’s 2012 IPO, the two cofounders control 68% of the voting power through their Class B share ownership. 

Bhusri’s Linkedin post is jam-packed with optimism for Workday’s future but the numbers are far more complex. In the past three years, the company has announced multiple rounds of layoffs impacting thousands of jobs with the rationale that they were part of a realignment, a shift toward AI, and a move to improve profitability. Last February, the company slashed its workforce by roughly 7.5% as part of a restructuring plan and recorded $172 million in associated charges.

While revenue is growing—Workday posted $8.4 billion in total revenue for fiscal 2025, up 16% over the year prior—that growth has slowed. Subscription revenue growth, for example,slowed from 19% in fiscal 2024 to 17% in fiscal 2025, per the company’s annual report, with the most recent quarter showing 15%. Plus, the unknown impact AI will have on SaaS companies is a brutal hangover on the sector, and the impact on Workday is significantly visible. The day of Bhusri’s return, the stock dropped more than 6%, underscoring investors’ anxiety about the company and its challenges adapting to the AI age. 

Workday has been mum on the specific targets Bhusri will have to hit to see his $138.8 million package pay out, but the disclosed terms state the $75 million award will be divided up into tranches that will require Bhusri to hit stock price targets—and stay at Workday. Bringing the price back up to its peak will mean more than doubling the stock price in the next five years. Bhusri’s $60 million restricted stock award will vest over four years so long as Bhusri stays with the company. He’ll also collect a $1.25 million yearly salary and a yearly cash bonus of up to $2.5 million. He won’t be eligible for any more grants until 2027.

Eschenbach, the former CEO, who resigned from all his roles and will now serve as a senior advisor, got a severance package valued at roughly $3.6 million and he’ll see accelerated vesting on nearly 140,000 shares of restricted stock units that would have vested in the year after his departure. At $150 a share, Eschenbach’s equity is worth more than $20 million, and he’ll see accelerated vesting on another 24,000 additional shares if performance metrics tied to the award are met. His “push-out score,” an independent assessment of the terms of his departure, ranked his departure a nine out of 10. The score suggests “it seems extremely likely” Eschenbach felt pressured to leave.

In a post on LinkedIn, Eschenbach praised Bhusri and his former “Workmates” at Workday.

“The opportunity ahead of us is always greater than what’s behind,” wrote Eschenbach. “We are at a massive inflection point with AI, and there is nobody better than Aneel to lead Workday through this moment and drive the vision forward.”

Bhusri and Duffield’s agreement also means that if one of the co–founders is incapacitated or dies, the other gets control of both stakes. The dual-class structure is set to expire in October 2032—a year after Bhusri’s performance window closes in early 2031. That gives Bhusri a solid chunk of time to see if a co-founder in the CEO seat can make an impact on the stock price in the midst of an AI tidal wave.

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Dogecoin is part of those receiving inflows with the current inflows into the Bitcoin and crypto industry. However, Billy Markus, best known as the co-creator of Dogecoin, shared a blunt take on the current state of digital assets. 

Taking to the social platform X, Markus acknowledged the general strength of the market but made it clear he isn’t interested until he sees cryptocurrencies breaking past their previous peak price levels. His message came at a moment when markets have shown gains and following Bitcoin’s return above $96,000.

Doubts On All-Time High Predictions

The entire crypto market cap is currently sitting at $3.344 trillion at the time of writing. When compared to the $3.047 trillion recorded on January 1, this represents an increase of about 9.7%, meaning close to $300 billion has flowed back into digital assets over the past few weeks. That rise has helped restore some confidence across the market after a period of choppy and indecisive price action in late 2025.

Things are going well for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other large market-cap cryptos, and bullish momentum is starting to creep in steadily. However, Billy Markus, the co-creator of Dogecoin, specifically mentioned the need for big benchmark breaks to actually happen before believing the optimism that’s creeping in.

In a short message addressed to his millions of followers, Markus remarked that while “crypto is doing good and all,” he would rather be woken up when all-time highs are actually being broken. The comment struck a chord across the community and quickly drew a range of reactions, with some noting new all-time highs feel like a myth at this point, and others noting that new price highs are certainly coming.

Although Markus and his co-creators created Dogecoin as a joke, he holds a selective view of the different assets in the crypto industry. Over the years, he has expressed respect for a small group of networks he views as meaningful or resilient, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Solana.

Where Crypto Stands Now

Billy Markus’ comment shows a larger divide between perspectives in the crypto community based on the current price action of major cryptocurrencies. On one hand, prices have recovered meaningfully from recent pullbacks, but on the other, the major benchmarks many traders are watching have yet to be reclaimed.

Bitcoin is currently trading in the mid-$90,000 range $96,240 after retreating from its October peak above $126,000. This price uptick is yet to reclaim $100,000, and it might not be until this happens that a full bullish momentum rolls in.

Dogecoin’s performance corresponds to the broader market’s mixed signals. The meme token is now back to making daily closes above $0.14 as selling pressure eases and traders are on high alert. However, technical analysis of Dogecoin’s price action shows that the real test is at $0.157, and traders should not celebrate early until this level falls.

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Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum (ETH), has announced new improvements to address persistent challenges in the decentralized network. The announcement comes as the Ethereum price surges more than 8% from the beginning of the year, signaling a strong rebound from previous bearish trends.   

Ethereum Founder Introduces Solutions To Network Issues

Buterin has returned with solutions to long-standing network issues as ETH rebounds, pushing its price above $3,220. The Ethereum founder disclosed that Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs) have reached an alpha stage, offering product-quality performance, while final safety audits are still ongoing. At the same time, Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS) is already live on the mainnet, delivering a critical piece of Ethereum’s next-generational infrastructure.

According to Buterin, these upgrades aren’t just minor improvements. They fundamentally transform Ethereum into a more powerful and resilient decentralized network. He compared Ethereum’s evolution to earlier peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent and Bitcoin. While BitTorrent offered massive bandwidth and decentralization, it lacked consensus. Conversely, Bitcoin ensured decentralization and consensus but at the expense of bandwidth. 

With the introduction of PeerDAS and zkEVMs, Buterin says that ETH has officially achieved complete decentralization, consensus, and high bandwidth. He describes this milestone as solving the blockchain “trilemma” with live, functioning code. He also emphasized that these developments represent a decade-long effort, tracing back to the earliest commits on data availability sampling and the initiation of zkEVM development around 2020. 

Looking ahead, the Ethereum founder expects the network’s full vision to unfold over the next four years. He disclosed that in 2026, gas limits will increase thanks to Block-Level Access Lists (BALs) and Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), while zkEVM nodes will begin operating on segments of the network. Between 2026 and 2028, Buterin says, Ethereum will adjust gas pricing, restructure state, and integrate execution payloads into blobs to safely accommodate higher limits. 

Finally, by 2027-2030, zkEVMs are expected to become the primary method of block validation, enabling further large-scale increases in the gas limit. Buterin suggests that these upcoming advancements will solve the long-standing problem in decentralized networks, where only two of three key properties, decentralization, security, and speed, can co-exist. Thanks to its new upgrades, ETH now has all three. 

Buterin Outlines Plans For Distributed Block Building

In his post, Buterin unveiled further network upgrades focused on distributed block building. He envisions a long-term goal in which no full block is ever assembled in a single location. While this is not an immediate need, the founder believes it’s important to start developing this capability to prepare for the blockchain network’s future. 

In the meantime, he emphasized that block-building authority should remain as widely distributed as possible. This can be done in two ways: either within the protocol itself by expanding Fork Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) to handle transactions, or externally through distributed builder marketplaces. According to Buterin, these initiatives aim to reduce the risk of centralized interference in transaction inclusion. At the same time, they promote greater geographical fairness across the Ethereum network.

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The Stanford computer science alum and Peter Thiel fellow argued that while older generations view AI as a tool to be adopted, Gen Z views it as a native language. However, this fluency comes with a unique burden: the “AI anxiety” of keeping pace with technology that is currently the “worst” it will ever be.

Speaking at Fortune Brainstorm AI in San Francisco, Nirghin addressed the tension between the perception of Gen Z and their reality as builders. “The truth is the younger generation isn’t adopting AI,” she said. “We’re growing up fluent in AI.” This distinction is critical in the workplace. While a manager might see an employee using an AI agent as cutting corners, Nirghin said she sees a shift in the architecture of work itself.

“We aren’t thinking about coding from scratch,” she explained. “We’re thinking about coding with a coding agent side by side.” Far from being generation shortcut, Gen Z are trailblazers, she argued.

“That fundamentally changes how you write, how you take tests, how you apply to jobs or different applications, because it’s not from the ground up,” Nirghin said about working side by side with an agent. “I think what that really means is that this broad level of use cases and applications we’re seeing is really being pioneered by the younger generation.”

The ‘lazy’ myth vs. deep thinking

One of the most pervasive criticisms of the digital native generation is that reliance on large language models (LLMs) erodes critical thinking skills. Nirghin firmly rejects this. “I think that the biggest misconception is that young people are using AI to not think things through,” she said, that they’re using it “as a shortcut.”

Instead, Nirghin said that intelligent users are leveraging these tools to offload cognitive labor so they can probe complex subjects with greater intensity. She said it’s not as simple as handing off the “cognitive load” to an AI model, it’s about thinking “differently … even “deeper” on a specific subject, because the agent is taking hours of menial work off your hands.

As an example, she pointed to running deep research reports on financial markets that might take hours to generate manually. By automating that work, she said the user is free to analyze the implications rather than just gathering the data. “What does that unlock for you?” she asked the audience, urging them to consider just how much more they can do with these tools at their “fingertips.”

The anxiety of infinite improvement

Nirghin said her generation does face a daunting reality that people don’t appreciate: the relentless speed of obsolescence, and their own awareness of that fact. She said fears over AI have some similarities to “climate anxiety.” Noting that some of her earliest research was about climate change, she explained climate anxiety as the idea that “there’s this movement of climate change coming up and we don’t really know what to do but we know it’s coming and nobody is moving as fast to solve the problem.”

It’s tied to the realization that current technology, as impressive as it seems, is primitive compared to what is coming next. “The models right now are as dumb as they are ever going to be,” Nirghin warned. “It is only going to get faster, more advanced and more intelligent, each and every model from from here on out.”

For Gen Z workers, she said, this creates a pressure environment where staying ahead is a daily requirement. Nirghin noted that recent model releases have “engulfed the benchmarks in such an enormous way” that previous capabilities can now be “10xed” overnight—imagine coming to work tomorrow, able to produce 10 times as much since yesterday. If a worker isn’t consistently on top of these updates, “you’re kind of left behind.” The fear isn’t about taking too many shortcuts, but not figuring out every pathway and every update to hit that 10x.

Taste as the new IQ

If intelligence is being commoditized by models that improve exponentially, what becomes the new metric for human value? According to Nirghin, it is “taste.”

Nirghin, whose background includes work at Stanford’s Human-Centered AI labs, argued that benchmarks around accuracy no longer capture what makes a product successful. She cited the example of coding agents that, without human guidance, might uncontrollably add “sparkle emojis” to a front-end UI because they “love” certain design tropes.

“You know something is vibe coded if you’ve ever sort of worked with a coding agent,” she joked. The differentiator for the future workforce will not be the ability to generate code or text, but the human-centered judgment to determine what users actually want to see. “As models and use cases and efficiencies change,” Nirghin said, “the key differentiator is taste.”

Nirghin’s advice extends beyond her peers to the older generations currently managing them. She stressed that “AI fluency is just as important for people that are already in the workforce,” urging them to arm themselves with tools like ChatGPT or Gemini as daily “co-pilots.”

Ultimately, Nirghin said she views the rapid evolution of AI not as a threat to employment, but as a challenge to adaptation. Whether automating back-office processes or launching “deep research agents,” the economic “unlock” provided by these models is already incredible, even if they never improved again. But the anxiety of keeping up is the new price of admission for the future of work.

“My calls to big brands led to me asking for samples and raffle prizes,” Eder recalls to Fortune. “Soon, my student hall bedroom was filled with condoms from Durex, Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, Coffee from Starbucks, Pot Noodles and Lush soaps that made it fragrant for months after.” 

At the same time, Eder was working as a brand manager for Yell, where he says he’d already worked with more than 30 brands. A business plan assignment in his degree became the perfect place to shape the concept.

So after graduating, he and his older brother—who worked at an investment bank and had his own side hustle, selling titanium power on Ebay—bootstrapped what became one of the U.K.’s defining student platforms, with a £3,000 loan. 

Over 15,000 students signed up to get exclusive discount vouchers from over 200 local businesses in its first year. By year three, Student Beans had 150,000 users. And today? It’s rebranded as Pion, works with over 3,500 brands from Gymshark to Uber, with over 5 million customers in more than 100 countries. 

While Eder still holds a 35% stake in the £30-million-a-year turnover company, he walked away from day-to-day operations 10 years ago to pursue another idea: A location-based rival to LinkedIn called Causr, where you’d be able to see professionals nearby and connect. 

But despite raising £500,000 and attracting 3,000 users, Eder’s second startup collapsed. A heart condition diagnosis forced him to rethink everything. 

Having a defibrillator implanted in his chest quietly reshaped how he approaches purpose, work, and the limited resource none of us get back: time.

Today, Eder spends up to half the year in Méribel. He skis most mornings, and is fresh off the launch of The Collision Code—his book, which hit No. 1 on Amazon’s “Most Gifted” list and has already raised more than £8,500 for heart-health charities.

Yet even with the mountain air and flexible schedule, he says the real “good life” is less about escape, and more about learning how to design a life you don’t need to run away from.

The finances

What’s been your best-ever investment?

The best investment I ever made was £400 on a three-day personal development programme called The Landmark Forum in 2009. A friend invited me to an introductory evening. I was sceptical, but I also knew I had nothing to lose. At the very least, I thought it would be three days of reflection, learning about myself and meeting new people.

But it helped me understand how I operate, why I behave the way I do and which beliefs were holding me back. It shifted how I showed up for myself and for others. It gave me the confidence to speak up, build meaningful relationships and say yes to opportunities that scared me. Everything I have done since, from founding companies to writing my book The Collision Code, traces back to the moment I decided to invest in myself.

Once I became a qualified coach, these stepping stones enabled me to design a life that means I live in the French Alps up to six months of the year, enjoying the mountain air and skiing whilst balancing my clients and health.

And the worst?

My second startup, Causr. I raised £150,000, registered for VAT (value added tax) and qualified for R&D tax credits, which brought the total investment closer to £200,000. I also invested three years of my life. We built an app for both Apple and Android and attracted around 3,000 users, but engagement was almost non-existent.  

I thought with the success behind me, having built Student Beans, I was so confident the world needed this and I could make this work. But I made the mistake of moving too fast. The moment the funding landed, I felt pressure to spend it and scale immediately. If I could go back, I would have continued testing, validating and learning with a much smaller audience before committing to a full build.

What are your living arrangements like?

I’m fortunate to spend time in between London, Kentish Town, in an old converted school with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a roof terrace that gets the sun for most of the day. I moved there when we relocated the Student Beans offices to Kentish Town and when I was there day-to-day it was just a ten-minute walking commute. 

For almost half the rest of the year I’ve chosen to live in the French Alps in a beautiful studio apartment just above Meribel Centre in one of the best and largest ski areas of the world, The Three Valleys. I first fell in love with the mountains, skiing in the same area at around four or five. When I was diagnosed with my heart condition, it was a dream to be able to go back there and make this happen. I feel like I’ve got the perfect balance of the buzz of London and having everything on my doorstep, then mountain escape.

What’s in your wallet?

I never carry any cash. I have two default bank cards I use: The Virgin Atlantic Credit card which affords me to travel regularly in premium and upperclass, or my Revolut, which offers such convenience for different currencies whilst travelling and a brilliant interface.

Do you invest in shares?

I used an advisor for a number of years, making sure I benefited from the ISA tax-free allowances (similar to a Roth IRA in the U.S.). The most fantastic thing I did was invest in a money coach. For the first time, I understood how it works, what a bull and bear market is, what a tracker fund is … I now manage my funds and use Vanguard and Interactive Investor to do the work. I also invest in premium bonds, which are also tax-free investments.

What personal finance advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

I would emphasise the importance of monthly contributions, however small and maximising the tax-free ISA allowances as much as possible.

What’s the one subscription you can’t live without?

My EasyJet Plus subscription. Due to most of my European travel being short-haul with the majority served by EasyJet, it’s a useful perk—priority security, speedy boarding, seat selection and extra handheld luggage.

What’s your most ridiculous ongoing expense?

I don’t have ridiculous ongoing expenses, but I make up for it with travel. Most of my outgoings are on destination travel and related expenses. My annual ski pass for those who don’t ski might be questionable.

Courtesy of James Eder

The Necessities 

How do you get your daily coffee fix?

I don’t drink coffee. I never got into it. My weakness is hot chocolate with cream, which I usually drink daily during the winter in the Alps, and it ranges in price from €5 to €10—so a habit of up to €40 a week.

What about eating on the go?

My go-to when I’m in the U.K. is PizzaExpress and Wagamama, reasonably priced and quick eats. I usually eat out three to four times a week. If I’m in town and in between meetings a Pret-A-Manger is a frequent destination. For meetings, I will often be at The Ivy, The Granary Square Brasserie in Kings Cross, The Wolseley or The Delaunay. Novikov or Sketch are also favourites.

Where do you buy groceries?

When I’m in London, I’ll grab food on the way home from being out—a stir fry, or salmon. In France, I do a weekly shop from Carrefour and feel like I have a better balanced diet as I have more time to spend planning and in the kitchen. It’s just a different way of living.

What’s a typical work outfit for you?

I’m usually in jeans from Citizens of Humanity with a shirt and a tailored jacket, polished but relaxed. Day-to-day, I’ve been leaning more casual and think Uniqlo is great for quality basics. I budget up to £1,000 a year on clothes and focus on things I’ll wear again and again.

The Treats  

Are you the proud owner of any tech gadgets?

My Apple Watch has been a game-changer. I originally got it with my Vitality Health Care insurance plan and it has helped me identify when I had a change in heart rhythm as well as give me more confidence in exercising.

The one gadget that I think would really improve the quality of my life is a kitchen robot. Of course, there are private chefs, but the idea of having something in my kitchen that can cook with anything is wild.

How do you unwind from the top job?

What’s your take on work-life balance at the top?

In the early days of Student Beans, I was definitely working for over 12 hours a day and felt like I was always on. That was the same at Causr. Since I’m now a coach and author, work ebbs and flows.

Some days I’m out first thing for a breakfast meeting, working through the day, having an interview, doing a photo shoot, a lunch appointment, writing content, speaking at an event, recording a podcast and out for dinner. My take on work-life balance is to reframe it as being about life and whether you’re enjoying it or not. 

How do you treat yourself when you get a promotion?

Because I have always worked for myself, promotions were never my milestone. Instead, I celebrated big moments like signing a major client, or raising investment. Those were the times I treated myself to something special. I love the art in my flat and choosing pieces that connect to a memory makes them even more meaningful. One of my favourites is an original limited edition Paul Kenton print of London and the Thames. 

How many days annual leave do you take a year?

Whenever I am in France, it naturally feels like a holiday even though I am working. On top of that, I actively take around three months each year to travel and explore.

Take us on holiday with you, where did you go this year?

When I go on the heart transplant list, I’ll need to be within four hours of Cambridge and the transplant hospital at all times, so it’s made me focus on making the most of travelling. 

I started 2025 in France, in March, visiting Tignes, another ski resort where I was a social host on European Snow Pride, a week-long gay festival. In April, I went to Gran Canaria for a few days. From there, I flew to Geneva and visited Meribel to get the keys to my new apartment, followed by a few days in Paris for my birthday. I spent a couple of weeks in Sardinia, including a sailing trip on a catamaran around Sardinia and Corsica. I then went to Wales for The Do Lectures, a few days of glamping with a community of over a hundred inspiring people. 

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Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has issued a sharp public warning to Elon Musk over how X is being used to direct increasingly aggressive rhetoric at Europe, arguing that the platform is drifting from a free-speech ideal toward orchestrated hostility.

Ethereum Founder Calls Out Elon Musk

In a series of posts on X, Buterin said that “the attacks on Europe I’ve seen here the last couple of days, including from people I’ve generally considered interesting and sophisticated, have been getting unhinged.”

He acknowledged that the European Union has serious shortcomings, listing “GDPR clickthroughs are dumb, Chat Control is awful, they need to be less bureaucratic and supportive toward entrepreneurs,” and criticizing what he called Europe’s selective moral stance, noting that its “kindness toward Ukraine often doesn’t extend well to Gaza or Sudan or other places.” He also described “people saying mean things about criminals getting longer sentences than the criminals” as “just crazy.”

Despite that, the Ethereum founder argued that the way some users on X are talking about Europe has moved well beyond legitimate criticism. He described “the apocalyptic attitude about the issues, evoking imagery of barbarians pillaging Rome etc,” as “really over the top” and said it “feels more like a coordinated attempt to delegitimize than constructive criticism.”

He rejected the idea that the real target is only Brussels-based institutions, writing: “I don’t believe the line that ‘the target is not Europe, it’s the EU’: I’ve seen many instances of London specifically being targeted in the hate session, so no, much of it is an attack on Europe.” This, he argued, does not match his experience from “spending an average of two months every year there for the last decade.”

The central confrontation came in a direct reply to Musk. Addressing the X owner’s self-positioning as a defender of free speech, the Ethereum founder wrote: “I think you should consider that making X a global totem pole for Free Speech, and then turning it into a death star laser for coordinated hate sessions, is actually harmful for the cause of free speech. I’m seriously worried that huge backlashes against values I hold dear are coming in a few years’ time.”

Buterin Hints At Russian Involvement

The thread sparked pushback from some users who argued that his framing underplays European complicity in current conflicts. One critic responded that “’not extending kindness’ is an incredible way to frame funding, arming and politically backing a genocide,” and claimed that it is “hilarious to think the US doesn’t suffer from many of the same things or worse that Americans say about the EU.”

The Ethereum founder replied that Europe is “a genuinely mixed bag,” emphasizing that “different countries in Europe have very different policies,” and pointing out that the continent “also hosts ICC, which is under a lot of pressure (see: judges being financially deplatformed).”

Other replies widened the lens to geopolitics. Commenting on a suggestion that the current discourse looks like “a coordinated campaign due to the Kremlin liking the new US ‘going back to Monroe’ global security policy,” Buterin answered “yeah basically” and added that “a lot of powerful people really like the vision that the world should just be 5–20 adults who have their spheres and sometimes get together in a room to hash out any differences, and everyone else can be shut out because they are annoying and inconvenient.”

At the same time, Buterin restated his support for the European project as an institutional experiment. “I have a lot of respect for the idea of EU, as an experiment in trying to get the benefits of a superstate, without the homogenization, becoming an aggressive ‘great power’, and other downsides,” he wrote, while stressing that “the experiment does need to be adjusted in a lot of ways; eg. we see not enough unity in its external policy and too much unity on top-down bureaucracy and surveillance at the same time.” If improved, he argued, “it’s a model that could set a really good example for the world.”

On the technical side, the Ethereum founder used the debate over “gdpr clickthroughs” to propose a different approach to online control, calling for “more sophisticated user-side software (browsers, local LLMs…) that helps the user navigate the internet and make intelligent decisions about what requires confirmations from the user.” In contrast to the centralized dynamics he criticizes on X, he is effectively pointing back to user-empowering, decentralized tools as the way to reconcile regulation, usability and free expression.

Musk Vs. The European Union

Notably, Musk’s anti-EU outburst comes after the Commission has issued a fine of €120 million to X for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk wrote via X that “The ‘EU’ imposed this crazy fine not just on @X, but also on me personally, which is even more insane!” and says it would be “appropriate to apply our response not just to the EU, but also to the individuals who took this action against me.”

In subsequent posts he escalated further, declaring that “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries,” calling to “Dissolve the EU and return power to the people,” and even asserting that “The EU commissars are responsible for the murder of Europe.”

At press time, Ethereum traded at $3,316.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is sounding the alarm over X’s new “show which country the account is from” transparency tag, arguing that the feature will be quickly undermined by spoofing while exposing some users to unacceptable privacy risk. X has recently expanded its “About This Account” surface, letting users see metadata such as an account’s country or region alongside creation details, a move the platform positions as a tool against manipulation and inauthentic behavior.

Ethereum Founder Sounds The Alarm

Buterin’s first post acknowledged near-term upside but framed the system as fragile under adversarial pressure. “In the short term it will have lots of positive effects,” he wrote. He then predicted that sophisticated operators will adapt faster than the platform can harden the signal: “the sophisticated actors will find ways to pretend to be from countries that they are not,” pointing to rentable passports, phone numbers, and IP infrastructure that can be used to manufacture plausible provenance.

His core asymmetry claim was blunt: “Getting a million accounts with fake location will be medium-hard, getting a single account with fake location, and then getting it to a million followers, will be easy.” In his view, the feature will drift from authenticity check to theater, with foreign influence accounts displaying Anglosphere tags to amplify credibility: “In six months, the actually-[random Eurasian country]-based political troll accounts with names like ‘Defend Western Civilization’ or whatever will all have ‘USA’ or ‘UK’ as their location tags.”

The Ethereum founder stressed that he was describing incentives, not endorsing them: “This is what I think will happen, not what I wish.” What he wants instead is a provenance system that yields “more visibility into how people from different communities think about different issues, in a way that is not easy to spoof,” and that defines communities through broader, emergent evidence rather than “a narrow set of highly legible credentials like countries.”

He concluded that “making such a system adversarially robust will not be easy,” a critique consistent with the crypto security view that identity signals decay once attackers can buy or synthesize them at scale.

Shortly after, the Ethereum founder sharpened his objection to consent and safety. “I thought about this more and I think responders are right that revealing the country non-consensually without offering any opt-out option (not even ‘stop using your account’) is wrong,” he wrote.

He noted that country-level disclosure is broadly non-identifying, yet warned that edge cases matter: “there are some people for whom even a few bits of leakage are risky, and they should not have their privacy retroactively rugpulled with no recourse.” Privacy advocates on X have echoed this concern, especially for users in authoritarian or conflict settings who fear location metadata can support harassment, surveillance, or legal targeting.

X has already faced questions about accuracy and implementation, with reports that some country tags appeared incorrect and the platform adjusted visibility while promising fixes. That instability reinforces the Ethereum founder’s warning: if tags are inferred from IP, app-store, or telecom data, they are vulnerable not only to deliberate spoofing but also to routine distortions like VPN use, SIM swapping, or account resales.

At press time, Ethereum traded at $2,800.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.