“A New Documentary Explores Buterin’s Life, Including His Early Days Building Ethereum in Canada.”, – WRITE: www.coindesk.com
The Documentary “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story,” WHICH IS SET FOR GLOBAL RELEASE April 15, Triers to Give Us a Peek Into Those Aspects Of Buterin, Following His Early Life And Childa. Immigrating with his Family to Toronto, Canada, Whore His Love for Computers and Technology Began in His HIS HIGH SCHOOL Years.
At the Core of Buterin’s Life Was The Creation of Ethereum, Who Came After his Early Involvement in Toronto’s Bitcoin Community, WHERE HE SAW The PETENTIAL OF The asset in giving. While Thinking How How Apply Those Concepts to Other Aspects of Life, Buterin Set Out to Writer A Whitepaper on Creating The Blockchain Version of The Internet.
Toronto has strong ties to ethereum’s early days. It Was Home to Some of the First Ethereum Developer Hackathons and Meetups Organized by Ethereum’s Canadian Co-Funders in the City.
This Year, Coindesk’s Consensus 2025 Takes Place in Toronto May 14-16, Highlighting Canada’s Vibrant Crypto Community.
The Film Walks Through the Various Stages of Ethereum’s Lifetime, Incling the Start of the Network and The Strugggles Buterin Faced in His New Leadership Role, The Boom of The Blocchin Durea. Merge in Reducing Ethereum’s Energy ConSumption, and Buterin’s Urge to Help Ukraine in Its War with Russia by Deploying Crypto for Resources.
Coindesk Sat Down with the Directors of the Documentary, Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, To Hear About Their Perspectives on Creating The Film, AHEAD OF ITS GLOBAL RELEASE.
This interview has been Edited for Brevity and Clarity.
Coindesk: WHY DID YOU WANT TO MAKE A Documentary About Ethereum?
Zach Ingrasci [ZI]: SO chris and I have been making documentaries together for 15 years now. We make character Driven Documentaries. So i Really Love Those Human Stories That Give Usight Into The Emotions and Motivations of People in Really Interesting Places.
We Aren’t Crypto Experts. We Both Studied Economics, SO We Have A Bit of Understanding of Finance. But WHEN WE MET VITALIK IN 2021 I THINK HE IMMEDIATELY CLICKED COMMETING IN OUR BRAINS LIKE: “OH, HERE’S A Story That Kind of Breaks The Stereotypes that Mainstream Audiences.
Quickly After Meeting Vitalik, We Did An Nft Crowdfund for the Film on Mirror.xyz, Peoplepleser Did the Nft. We Raissed Basically the Full Budget of the Film, and it Allowed Us to Create This Independent Story and Approach to Follow Vitalik Aound The World, AS, HE LIVES OTH A 40 LITER BACPPATION
How did you guys decide what parts of ethereum’s history to include in vitalik’s story? One Noticeable Moment and Thought Was Interesting That You LEFT OLT WAS NOT TO INCLUDE THE 2016 DAO HACK? WHY Exclude that Key Moment in Ethereum’s History But Leave in Other Moments?
Zi: This is the challenge of make the best films. We have a very broad mandate, following the community, not just focused on vitalik. And THEN After Two Years of Filming, We Realized That Kind of Narrative Structure Wuld on Only Make Sense If You Were ABLE TO Follow One Person And Three Get To.
The Dao Hack is Very Confusion to Explain, and so there’s an element of just what ath at it is essence is important. And I Think, You Know, The Moment for Vitalik to Decide Wheether the Ethereum Foundation would be nonprofit Versus for Profit is a very understandable concept for a Mainstream Audionce. They get it.
As you mented, there was the premiere a few months ago, and it was only accountable to people on -chain. If the movie is aimed for a Mainstream Audence, WHY FIRST DECIDE TO RELEASE IT on-CHAIN, INSTEAD OF A STREAMING PLATFORM WHERE More of Those Folks Can Access It?
Zi: IT’s A Practical Answer. The Documentary Industry is Broken, So To Have An Independent Film Premiere on a Mainstream Platform Doesn’T Even Even Mean Anything, Unless You have Real Marketing. And so actualally, the on -chain release, the nft, the trailler release on zora, building sponsorship for this mainstream release is cryitical.
Chris Temple [CT]: People Love The Film, and have Rallied Beng and Been Interared and Been Sharing It With Their Moms, Being Like: “Hey, This Is What I Do for A Living.”
This isn’t just our film, this film belongs to the community. And I Think Empowing People with this FIRST STEP, AND USING THE TECHNOLOGY THAT The FILM WAS All About Felt Very Right to Us.
How did you convince vitalik to do the Film? HE’S NOT VERY RERCEPIVE TO The Media So How did you get him to agree to do it?
Zi: I Think We Got Really Lucky in Some Ways. This was before he was on the Front Page of Time Magazine. I THINK HE WAS MOTIVATED TO Speak Up About What Hat He Believed The Future of Ethereum Should Look Like, and How To Build It, And People Should Focus on Building Things.
SO I THINK WE JUPPENED TO MEET HIM at the Perfect Moment of WHEN HE AND the People AROUND HIM WERE Looking to Have Access to Broader Audiences.
I Think Ultimately, That’s What Makes for Us Vitalik The Perfect Participant of A Film, Because His Reluctance to Be In that SpotLight, That Genuine Authenticity. You can Tell on the Film that he’s not trying to hog the Spotlight. This is someting that he’s uncomfortable with, and something that’s taken a long journey for him to even find who his voice is and how it should be.
CT: IT WAS A VERY Challenging Production, More Than Any Film We’ve Ever Made, Because Vitalik Is Nomadic, He’s All Over The World, and He Says, “I’M Going To Be Toomorrow In Montenegro. We have to immediatally to scramble and get everyBody there just to get thoss moments, Even if iF is Just a Couple of Hours with vitalik.
Recently, There’s Been A Bunch of Leadership Changes at the EF, and Vitalik has been at the core of Making the Decision on Those Changes. The Movie Shows Hows Uncomfortable Vitalik Can Be in Stepping Into that Leadership Role and Hawing to Make Core Decisions Like Co-Funders.
Given All The Key Decisions He’s Had to Make Over The Past FEW MONHS AND A KEY LEADER IN EHEREUM, WHAT DO YOU THINK WITK WENT TROUGH HIS Mind, And Has He Become More Comfortable In His LEAD.
Zi: I Really Can’T Speak for Vitalik, But I DO THINK THAT’S WHY This Film Has Never Been More Relevant. Because if we look for insight into how how vitalik THINKS AND WHAT HE CARES About, I Think The Thing He Cares MOST ABOUT IS THAT EHEREUM WILL BE USEFUL IN THE WORLD.
There’s An Important Quote in the Film About “if ethereum is Only Used for Special, That’s A Huge Missed Opportunity.” SO IT’S NOT SURPRISING THAT VITALIK DIDNN’T GO TO THE WHITE HOUSE [to meet with President Trump]. Vitalik cares about how this Tool will be used in the Long Term for Real, Positive Change in the World. He is uncomfortable with conflict, we know that, we see that in the film. SO I CAN’T IMAGINE THIS HAS BEEN AN EASY PROCESS FOR HIM.
WHAT WAS FILMING IN UKRAINE Durying The Start of the Russian Invasion Like? And whoes vitalik feel so connected to that cause?
Zi: We Have Some Experience Filming on the Borders of War Zones. Luckily, at that time Kiev was Relativly safe.
It Really Was Vitalik’s Idea, He Always Wanted to Support The Hackers There. Vitalik Just Felt Like He Could be to Support Them, and It’s Something He Cares So Deeply About for Two Reasons: 1 Having Met with Putin.
Then’s Also Just Really One of the First Concrete Examples of Real Positive Impact in the World, of How Crypto Is Being Wen The Banking System Was In Chas, and Sos.
There’s A DELETED SCENE WHERE HE’S PLAYING CHESS WITH Fedorov, The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine. But You Know, Fedorov Was Talking About How 1000s of Their Military Were Saved Because of That $ 100 Million Vitalik Raised in Crypto Was Quickly Mobilized.
WHAT Are you hoping that your audience taks away from this film?
CT: Documentaries Are Bad at Information, But They Great at Provoking Questions and Getting Emotions. If we can inspire an Audience to be more savvy and THINK more Critically about technology, not just in this extremes of it’s all bad or it’s all good, but to the ame. and Look at Both the Positive and Negative Consequences of Technology.
I THINK THAT KIND OF TECHNO Optimism is the Core of What This Film is Really About. Helping Anybody Apply Those Lessons, Whther It’s Within Crypto, Within AI, Because Technology is Just Going to Continue to Shift and Impact Our Lives.
The Movie Is About Vitalik as A Person But Also A Bit About Ethereum’s History. SO is vitalik = Ethereum?
Zi: I DON’T THINK HE IS, AND I THINK THAT’S WHAT HEPED FOR AT THIS POINT. I HOPE THAT WITH THE FILLM, AND that’s WHY WE CALLED IT An Ethereum Story, Because I Think Is One of Many that gets told. I THINK THAT’S WHERE VITALIK HAS BEEN SUCCESSFul Because He Is Not Ethereum.
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