"F**k Bitcoin": Who is Vitalik's war really aimed at?

In June, a photo of graffiti from the streets of Germany went viral in the encryption community:

The image says "F*** Bitcoin, this is our war" and the publisher is Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum.

A brief sentence can stir up a thousand waves.

This is not a casual complaint, but a long-standing confrontation of values. It is also a "public declaration of war" expressed by Vitalik at a critical moment when the Ethereum ETF is being implemented and the encryption landscape is being reshaped.

Bitcoin VS Ethereum: It's Not a Battle of Prices, but a Battle of Ideologies

In the past decade, the main players in the encryption market have always been Bitcoin and Ethereum. One is "digital gold," emphasizing scarcity, decentralization, and "monetary freedom"; the other is the "global computer," built on smart contracts and application ecosystems, driving on-chain innovation and connections to the real world.

Bitcoin pursues "less is more", minimalism, conservatism, and resistance to censorship.

Ethereum, on the other hand, is like an open city, continuously iterating and upgrading, transitioning from POW to POS, from L1 to L2, from EVM to ZK, dedicated to building a "functional" future network.

The two have long gone their separate ways, and Vitalik's statement this time is actually a metaphorical criticism of Bitcoin's "stagnation."

Why is it specifically in Germany, at this moment?

Germany has always been a symbolic "landmark of freedom" in encryption culture:

It is both the birthplace of the cypherpunk culture and one of the few countries in Europe that is "relatively friendly" to legislation on encryption assets.

Vitalik chose to issue the statement "This is our war" in Germany, actually emphasizing the battle for "the new generation of network sovereignty" represented by Ethereum, which is no longer dependent on the old narrative of Bitcoin, but aims to independently become the core of the future internet and financial architecture.

At the same time, in combination with the real situation:

The US SEC has approved multiple Ethereum spot ETFs, which will soon be listed on exchanges.

A large number of institutions are starting to include Ethereum as part of their asset allocation.

Layer2, AI chains, RWA and other Ethereum ecosystems are experiencing explosive growth...

Vitalik's words are a kind of "spiritual mobilization" for the new cycle of Ethereum.

Behind the War: It's not just about technology, but also about belief.

In the eyes of most retail investors, Bitcoin has risen, and Ethereum has also risen; this is the correlation of the "brother coins."

But in the eyes of the core developers and long-term believers of the chain, Bitcoin and Ethereum have already become two "civilizations":

Bitcoin is like the "anarchist" of classical politics, insisting on eternal rules and a minority consensus.

Ethereum is like a "rational builder" of modern engineers, believing in continuous upgrades and achieving better results through community games.

What Vitalik refers to as "war" is actually a battle of narratives, a battle of technical paths, and a struggle for discourse power over the future standards of the internet.

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What can ordinary people learn from this war?

Don't be confused by the "flame wars". As ordinary users and investors, we don't necessarily have to take sides, but we can see a few things clearly from it:

The encryption industry has entered a deep-water zone, where the core competition is no longer just about "who rises the most," but rather "who can build the future."

Choose the values you trust, not just the price of a coin. Bitcoin is about the belief in value storage, while Ethereum is about the application ecosystem.

This war will not immediately determine a winner or loser, but it is changing our internet lives for the next 10 years.

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Conclusion: Graffiti is a provocation, but also a declaration.

Vitalik is not an emotional person. Behind the phrase "Fuck Bitcoin" lies a lot of conflict and resonance in the encryption circle that cannot be clearly articulated.

Bitcoin has been around for 15 years and has now entered the era of institutional custody; Ethereum has been around for less than 10 years but has already begun to tell a whole new technological narrative.

This is not a simple black-and-white struggle, but an irreconcilable contradiction between the old world and the new paradigm.

And Vitalik just painted this war on the wall, telling the world.