Vitalik Buterin discussed ether's environmental impact, how dogecoin could become more like ether and joked with Elon Musk in a recent Twitter Q&A. Here are the 10 best quotes

• Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin opened up to his followers over a Twitter Q&A this week and joked with Tesla boss Elon Musk.
• He answered questions about love, regrets, dogecoin and where ethereum and crypto generally are heading.
• The ethereum network's ether token has comfortably outperformed larger crypto rival bitcoin this year.

Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of the ethereum network, took part in a question and answer session on Twitter this week, in which he discussed the outlook for the ether token, uses for the network's code, the downsides of fame and what his biggest regrets are.

Buterin is used to the limelight in the crypto world. He recently featured on a crypto-based show called stoner cats and regularly discusses the market.

The ethereum network's ether token has been one of the biggest outperformers in the crypto space this year, having gained more than 400% so far, versus a 72% gain in bitcoin. Buterin's Q&A followed the ethereum network's recent London hard fork upgrade in August that set ether on a course that has seen it hit four-month highs this week.

In the Twitter session on Wednesday, Buterin opened up about love, regrets, dogecoin and where ethereum and crypto more broadly are heading.

Here are the 10 best quotes, lightly edited for clarity:

1. "I hope so! Though I think in general crypto switching to proof of stake will only be a small part of the solution; ultimately we also need lots of very smart people contributing to longer-term fixes (solar power? fusion? carbon capture? sprinkling dust into the atmosphere?)," he said, answering if ethereum is part of the solution to climate problems.
2. "Ethereum will move to proof of stake (PoS) within one to two years," he said in response to 'what's something you had an insane amount of confidence in, only to have it turn out you were dead wrong?'.
3. "Account abstraction, statelessness, sharding, " he said, answering 'what protocol upgrades would you consider to be high priority after the merge is on the mainnet ?'
4. 10. "X AE A-12 don't hurt me," he said, referring to Elon Musk's youngest child, in a play on the lyrics of a 1990's pop hit, after the Tesla boss asked him 'what is love?' and posted a photo of his son.
5. "The whole "8 cofounders" thing (and choosing them so quickly and non discriminately)," he said in response to being asked what his biggest regrets in ethereum's journey were.
6. "I hope that doge can switch to PoS soon, perhaps using ethereum code," he said in response to being asked about ethereum and dogecoin 'cooperation'.
7. "10 years ago I thought that the market of resources, property rights, and trade were the most important processes in the world. Today I think much more about the ecosystem of discussion and spread of memes / culture / ideas. The latter follows quite different laws from the former," he said in response to 'what's the most recent thing you've changed your mind about?'
8. "The path I'm attempting right now is basically hoping that the transition to crypto is a big enough change of context that some of the usual resistance to new ideas disappears and we can add better mechanisms," he said, when asked 'many people including you can understand many of our institutions are broken, and how to outline better alternatives. But where is the audience or customers who want to buy and use this product?'
9. "I am planning to keep wearing a mask long after covid stops being a problem. There are definitely disadvantages," Vitalik said, when asked if he enjoys being famous or if he'd prefer to be less well known.
10. "Monkeys," he said, posting a photo of a monkey after being asked 'cats or dogs?'