Economics

Ethereum Creator Wonders Whether His Currency Should Be Scarcer

  • In a rare interview, Vitalik Buterin frets over ether supply
  • Notes ‘voodoo economics’ of digital tokens with no limits

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Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of the ethereum blockchain, may have created too much of a good thing.

The 23-year-old helped sell one of the first digital currencies in 2014 when he introduced ether to the public. Three years later he’s witnessed scads of other digital currencies raise more than $3 billion in 2017 via so-called initial coin offerings. The sheer number of coins now being created has made him ponder the previously imponderable: limiting the supply of ether.