Vitalik Buterin defends prediction markets against critics Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has defended prediction markets in response to criticism that betting on real events is ethically questionable. In a post on Farcaster, he claimed that these platforms offer better mechanisms for discovering the truth than social media. Vitalik Buterin wrote in his post: The thing to compare them to is social media. On social media, a lot of people talk about untrue events and there is no accountability.