Crypto giant upsets followers with air quality concerns

It wouldn’t ordinarily be a news story but when Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum crypto currency tweeted about the CO2 levels on his plane, the response itself wasn’t ordinary.

The tweet contain a photo of an air quality monitor showing CO2 levels of 3,598 ppm (parts per million) and one of Vitalik himself wearing a mask. 

Plane be like…

Me be like…

We really need to clean up our indoor air, but until then thank you @zhouliang_mask! pic.twitter.com/LYXLvAscXh

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 13, 2024

Many of the responses to the tweet were abusive for a reason well expressed on cryptonews.net: ‘the reaction of the cryptocurrency community, which is teeming with anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, was expectedly unhinged’.

Coinstats reported that the response: ‘underscores a deep-seated division within the community regarding public health measures and their implications. Some users expressed concerns by claiming they would sell off their Ether holdings, while others accused Buterin of fear-mongering.’

But Buterin was happy to engage with other users of X while sat on the runway:

‘How does that mask help reduce the C02 levels you are breathing? Doesn’t it make it worse?’ he was asked by one of his 5.3 million followers.

‘It’s not the CO2 itself that’s the (main) problem,’ he replied, ‘rather it’s a proxy way to measure that ∼7% the air I would be inhaling is air that has been breathed out by other people. 3000+ ppm means *lots* of various viruses (incl covid variants) floating around.’

He went on, ‘Modern planes do generally have quite a bit of ventilation + filtration but those mechanisms are usually turned off when the plane is on the ground.’

The fact of the matter is that Vitalik Buterin has long standing concern over air quality. His Balvi Filantropic Fund donated $15 million to the University of California San Diego for research into airborne pathogens and the University of Connecticut’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative received $300,000.

‘Improving the quality of indoor air is a key tool for dealing with covid and future pandemics without any disruption to normal life, said Buterin. ‘We are excited to support grassroots initiatives to improve air quality in schools and other public venues.’