Vitalik Buterin to write sci-fi novel on decentralized governance

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced on Wednesday via his Farcaster account, vitalik.eth, that he will pause his long-form technical essays to write a science-fiction novel about decentralized governance. He has posted the first two chapters on his personal website and described the project as an in-progress experiment.

On Farcaster he wrote: “decided to try my hand at writing decentralized governance scifi.” The chapters are drafts and available to the public on his site.

Buterin has written extensively about coordination in decentralized autonomous organizations, voting mechanisms and funding public goods. He has previously proposed tools such as quadratic voting and pluralist mechanisms to address concentrated influence among large token holders and low participation.

He wrote that fiction lets him show how governance mechanisms might operate inside imagined cities and crisis scenarios without testing them on the Ethereum mainnet, where errors could cause real financial harm.

The announcement appeared on Farcaster and on his personal website. Buterin has described the Ethereum Foundation as “one node in a wider ecosystem” and has praised Farcaster as a usable platform, reflecting a shift in where he posts public commentary.

Buterin has not indicated whether the draft will become a completed novel. He labeled the work an experiment and left the chapters open for readers to follow as he posts further sections.

The chapters and the Farcaster post are public, allowing readers and developers to read and comment on the governance ideas without any code changes or technical implementation on live blockchain systems.