"Contradiction between my desire to see Ethereum become a more Bitcoin-like system emphasizing long-term stability and stability, including culturally, and my realization that getting there requires quite a lot of active coordinated short-term change."

There's a reason Bitcoin only accepts very conservitive BIPs and has made the design choices that it has eh?

"Contradiction between my dislike of many modern financial blockchain "applications" ($3M monkeys etc), and my grudging appreciation for the fact that that stuff is a big part of what keeps the crypto economy running and pays for all my favorite cool DAO/governance experiments."

Yo even Vitalik doesn't like the NFTs lol

"Contradiction between my desire for crypto to grow beyond finance and my realization that finance (incl payments+SoV) is still by far the most successful category of crypto apps, especially among third-world residents, human rights activists and vulnerable people generally."

Yeah, Bitcoin won didn't it? No one is even trying to be money anymore except for old Bitcoin. Such a stable thing is what you want in money too isn't it?

Vitalik realizing Eth gives birth to fads and scams, and Bitcoin is the stable rock that reliable things are built upon (the thing he wanted Ethereum to be) is really hitting hard for him eh?

But hey, he's an engineer at the end of the day right? He just wanted to make something cool, but now the cool thing he made needs to die.