[erikpukinskis]

In the case of Ethereum, maybe a little of both.

The plan is to create an entirely new form of social organization. I'm not making any claims about the likelihood of success, but their vision is wholesale replacement of capitalism and democracy among other things.

There are some cultlike aspects to that. It is a form of abandonment of your friends and family. Since it's not yet realized, it requires some blind faith in Vitalik.

... in some ways every startup is cultlike though.

[natrius]

The decentralization vision does not require blind faith in Vitalik. The tools are already available. It's up to developers to pick them up and use them.

Solving the scalability problem and moving to proof-of-stake requires some faith in Vitalik, but that's only if you care about the value of ether, Ethereum's currency. I hold ether, but if Ethereum fails to solve these problems, someone else will solve them and I will be glad.

Personally, I have no desire to replace capitalism or democracy. But they are clearly broken. I intend to fix them, and I hope the decentralization community gains enough developers, designers, and economists to make it happen. We need your help.

[erikpukinskis]

To be clear, I love Ethereum and I think it will be a big part of the future.

But you seem to agree with me that there is some uncertainty there. We don't know if Ethereum will become the robust future-proof platform that it aspires to be. We also don't know if the problems it solves are really a critical part of the decentralized challenge or if it's bikeshedding. If you are making plans based on specific answers to those questions, your participation involves some degree of faith.

It sounds like you aren't personally relying on those answers, and you can afford to wait it out. That's great. For you it's just a neat technology then, not a cult.

I am impatient about social change, as my friends are in pain, so some faith would be required for me to invest time in the social vision of Ethereum today.

[DennisP]

And the scalability/PoS project has a team of several researchers. The official PoS lead is actually Vlad Zamfir.