‘X AE A-12 don’t hurt me’ — Vitalik Buterin tells Elon Musk what love is

• Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin told Elon Musk that love is, “X AE A-12 don’t hurt me,” during a session of ‘ask me anything’ (AMA) on Twitter.
• The fellow Doge enthusiast also highlighted his biggest regret with respect to Ethereum was choosing to have eight co-founders on board.
• That many people, chosen indiscriminately, made coordination and agreement difficult — especially when ‘huge incentive conflicts are at play’.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk jumped onto an ‘ask me anything’ (AMA) session hosted by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to ask one of the biggest existential questions ever — what is love?


Buterin, who is also a Dogecoin enthusiast like Musk, replied, “X AE A-12 don’t hurt me…” implying that love is what Musk feels for his son — wishing to keep him away from all the pains of the world.


Other bigwig questions about life and the universe included what Buterin has changed his mind about, life extension, obvious uses of crypto being ignored by the public at large, and more. However, his learnings from the Ethereum project seems to have drawn the most eyes.

Buterin’s biggest regret

When asked what his biggest regret is from his Ethereum journey, Buterin’s response was simple — the whole ‘8 cofounders’ thing.


For those who aren’t familiar with Ethereum’s history, the blockchain platform has more cofounders than is usual for a single project — eight, to be exact. And, each came on board with their own agenda and idea of what Ethereum should be.

The platform was originally described in a white paper by Buterin in 2013 with the objective of creating decentralised applications. But he wanted more people to guide the formative stages of the cryptocurrency.

Come 2014, this list included Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, Charles Hoskinson, Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke, and Joseph Lubin. Rather coming together like the 'Fellowship of Ethereum’, the collaboration became more an example of having too many cooks in the kitchen.



Hoskinson — who was once the CEO of Ethereum — is now the founder of Cardano, the third biggest cryptocurrency in the market. Similarly, Wood built Polkadot, which is also among the top 10 blockchain platforms by market capitalisation. Lubin, on the other hand, launched Consensys — an incubator for other blockchain startups.