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Crypto has come a long way from its extremely niche libertarian roots to becoming a globally recognized industry with assets offered by institutional giants like BlackRock to customers for investment.

Amid the evolution, however, there are growing concerns that the industry has become over-financialized and lost its ideological roots, but Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has begged to differ.

Buterin has resisted the idea that crypto has lost its ideological roots. In an X post on Wednesday, June 19, the Ethereum co-founder asserted, Were still here!

Buterins statement came in response to comments from Bloomberg Odd Lots co-host Joe Weisanthal. The Bloomberg co-host argued that crypto culture had changed significantly in the past five to six years.

Bank [back] then, you still had idealist hippies, talking about things like democracy on the blockchain, or UBIs, or open internet. Never hear about that anymore. Now 100% financial/meme coins stuff, Weisanthal wrote, highlighting the industrys perceived shift from lofty libertarian goals to only caring about asset prices.

According to Buterin, not only are cryptos idealist hippies still around, but many espoused ideas have progressed. Backing up this view, the Ethereum co-founder pointed to decentralized social networks like Farcaster and Lens, quadratic funding, which is making crowdfunding more democratic, and zero-knowledge identity solutions like Zupass.

It is the second time in a week that the Ethereum co-founder has had to showcase the crypto sectors growing utility beyond financial speculation.

In an X post on June 12, Buterin outlined seven key areas where the crypto industry had expanded functionality, including ZK credentials, improved cross-border payments, enterprise applications, and censorship-resistant voting, seemingly sharing the frustration of 0xDesigner who questioned why memecoins were still the dominant narrative in the crypto space.

Trying to make sense of the recent speculative fervor in the crypto markets, Polygon advisor Ajit chainyoda Tripathi contended that market conditions dictated the dominant crypto culture at a given time. According to Tripathi, this phenomenon can be observed in any market.

Concerns over the over-financialization of crypto have grown in the past few months amid the buzz surrounding ETFs and memecoins. Buterins statements suggest that despite the noise, cryptos core values around democracy and privacy remain.

Read this for more on Buterins thoughts on the recent crypto market cycle:Vitalik Buterin Unhappy with Celebrity Memecoin Cycle

See what analysts are saying about MATICs recent bounce:MATIC Bounce in Altcoin Rally: The Start of a 100% Surge?

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Vitalik on Crypto's Idealist Hippies: We're Still Here! - DailyCoin