Vitalik Buterin is known for the fact that he likes to fire live ammunition on Twitter. The latest target of the founder of Ethereum: Michael Saylor. The controversial CEO of the software company MicroStrategy is considered the face of Bitcoin maximalists. His company is the largest hodler in the world with almost 130,000 Bitcoin in their possession.
For many in the scene, the mind behind MicroStrategy is a hero. For Vitalik Buterin: a “clown”. In the wording: “Why do maximalists always look for people as their heroes, who turn out to be total clowns?”
Michael Saylor Rages Against Ethereum
The stumbling block: an appearance by the MicroStrategy CEO on the crypto podcast “Not investment advice”. There he leaves no good hair on Ethereum. The second largest cryptocurrency is in the midst of a gigantic transformation process. With the so-called ”merge” update, one wants to switch the entire network to a different consensus algorithm in September.
From then on, instead of using computing power as in Proof of Work, the network secures itself with ether deposits – the stake. The electricity-intensive mining at Ethereum ends. Many in the scene see this as a revolution, especially ecologically. Ethereum is expected to consume 99 percent less energy. Michael Saylor, on the other hand, sees it more as an original sin.
“The protocol never stops changing,” he said in the podcast. Over the next three years, Ethereum will undergo several serious updates. Many questions are still open, for example, how staking works in detail and over a long time. If there was a central entity, in this case the Ethereum Foundation, making these decisions, then the protocol would not be decentralized. He calls Ethereum a ”monstrosity”.
In comparison, Bitcoin has been more or less unchanged since its genesis. ”To achieve true decentralization, you need a protocol that runs exactly the same for at least ten years,” says Saylor.
Ethereum is a security
He also warns that Ethereum is actually a form of security, just like most altcoins. From a legal point of view, what the Foundation is doing is illegal. According to Michael Saylor, the head of the US financial supervisory Authority has already made this assessment. However, this is not true. Gery Gensler spoke about the fact that most altcoins would have to be classified as securities due to their characteristics. He has never mentioned Ethereum specifically so far.
In the current issue of BTC-ECHO magazine, we deal intensively and in detail with the upgrade of Ethereum and also all discussions about the consensus algorithms of Ethereum and Bitcoin. Which is better: Proof of Work or Proof of Stake?
According to BTC-ECHO editor Moritz Draht, PoS offers “the most advantages with the least compromises”. Colleague David Scheider, on the other hand, believes that on the technical side it is “inferior” to proof of work, with a “tendency to centralization”. You can order the issue here.
