Ethereum co-founder’s pro-Ukraine stance makes his Russian-Canadian dad proud

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Dmitry Buterin, a semi-retired Russian-Canadian serial entrepreneur, got a call three weeks ago from his son, cryptocurrency prodigy and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

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The two men typically talk in spurts; sometimes they speak every day, sometimes months pass between conversations. The younger Buterin’s calls can come from anywhere, since the 28-year-old gets around — Canada, Mexico, United States, Argentina, the capitals of Europe, Singapore, Moscow — evangelizing about all things blockchain and crypto related.

But the call home from San Francisco in early February was different.

“Vitalik said, ‘Dad, I want to write this social-media post, and I am scared to write it, but I really want to do it,’” his father said from his downtown Toronto condo.

The younger Buterin had reason to be fearful. The message he had in mind was intended not just for his 3.4 million Twitter followers, but for Vladimir Putin. The proposed post was also in Russian, which he speaks fluently, but writes less fluently, so he asked his father to check his spelling and for feedback, which he was happy to give then and now.

“Putin is a bully,” said the elder Buterin, a vocal critic of the Russian president whose antipathy is decades old. The Russian invasion had not even begun when his son joined the family fraternity of publicly challenging the bully.

“Whether the situation will return to a peaceful path or there will be a war can now be decided not by Zelensky, not by NATO, but by @KremlinRussia,” Vitalik tweeted on Feb 11.

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Buterin is no Elon Musk in promoting tub-thumping views on whatever subjects pop to mind. Rather, his statement represented a giant step from the shadows for a cerebral introvert, casting him into an environment where moral battle lines that didn’t exist a month ago are redrawing the activist map and thrusting all kinds of unexpected characters into the geopolitical spotlight.

Buterin’s social-media persona has rapidly evolved since: from that of an otherworldly genius, exclusively tweeting about the inner gears of the blockchain space, to that of a Russian-born, Canadian-raised, pro-Ukrainian — pro-ordinary Russian people — anti-Putin billionaire activist.

He recently promoted a crypto fundraiser for Ukrainian civilians where contributions were collected in ether — the currency of Ethereum — that raised close to US$7 million. He also shares his father’s human rights social-media blasts, and he has nudged a crypto community that has a significant Russian presence to get with the program and choose a side in the conflict.

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“Reminder,” Vitalik posted, this time in English. “Ethereum is neutral, but I am not.”

In short, the boy genius, whose father encouraged him to drop out of university and pursue his interest in bitcoin as a teenager more than a decade ago has found his voice politically, and his dad could not be prouder.

“At the end of the day, Vitalik is Russian, he is Russian speaking, and things have changed,” his father said. “That’s what leadership is: we have to be clear about what we believe in. We have to stand up, and Vitalik has said, ‘I stand for human values, I stand for peace,’ and there are a bunch of people in the crypto space in Russia giving him flack for it.”

The blowback is partly understandable. In Russia, the older Buterin said, what is “black” to the outside world is seen as “white” in Putin’s state-dominated, propaganda-saturated domestic bubble. The war in Ukraine isn’t a war of aggression, they’re told, but one of liberation, and the insanity of the Russian state messaging drives the 49-year-old ex-pat, well, a little bit nuts.

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But Buterin is familiar with the craziness of Russia. He was born in Grozny, and educated at the Moscow Institute of Electronics Engineering — yes, he is a computer geek — and he did a stint in the Russian army reserve in the mid-’90s. He remembers the experience for the spoiled meat the lowly recruits were fed, and for the generous amounts of booze the officers consumed on the job.

“The army has gotten worse since then, maybe it is better equipped now, but there is no professionalism — there is no morale,” he said.

Buterin, his first ex-wife, their five-year-old son Vitalik, and his second wife, who he is now also separated from, all immigrated to Canada in 1999. Putin was only just emerging as the dominant force in Russian politics. The future was impossible to predict.

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Canada, with Toronto serving as the family hub, seemed like a good place to build a life and raise a child who, at age seven, wrote an Encyclopedia of Bunnies that imagined an entire bunny world, complete with all the operating systems therein. You could call it foreshadowing.

“Vitalik, he is this amazing human, and the reason Ethereum is so successful, the foundation of it — there was a deep, fundamental human value behind it — is a desire to build better systems for people to cooperate, organize and build better,” Buterin said.

The father is quick to admit he isn’t a crypto expert. But, like his son, he is an entrepreneur. WildApricot Inc., a software company he founded as a management tool for small non-profits and sold in 2017 — hence the “semi-retired” label — had a Moscow office.

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The company wasn’t big or profitable enough to get ensnared by the government kickback schemes common in Russia, but Buterin said he has plenty of friends among the Russian entrepreneur set who became rich “playing the game.”

That is, securing state business in real estate, the sale of luxury goods and whatnot, and profiting from it, with the understanding that this is the way of doing business in Putin’s Russia, and so it’s best enjoy the spoils while turning a blind eye to the less savoury aspects of a corrupt state.

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In the days since the Russian invasion, Buterin has had some bitter exchanges with his old Moscow buddies, although he won’t name names. He also hasn’t slept much either, plugging instead into chat rooms full of Ukrainians, both under siege and living abroad, to brainstorm ways to fundraise, upend Moscow with, say, cyberattacks, and do anything other than stay silent.

“I have grandparents on both sides that were Ukrainian,” Buterin said. “I am talking to people whose cities are being bombed, and living in bomb shelters.”

He is talking to software engineers who have taken up arms and are taking the fight to the “bully.”

This is the first time he has taken such a clear political stand

Dmitry Buterin, of his son Vitalik

Their heroism has forced the world beyond to take sides. Buterin made his choice years ago. Now the sensitive genius he helped raise, stands alongside him.

“Vitalik said to me, ‘It looks like I will not be able to go to Russia again, at least until Putin’s regime is done,’ and I kind of feel as though it is the end of his childhood, if you will,” he said. “This is the first time he has taken such a clear political stand.”

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