Bitcoin developer Tuur Demeester recently took to Twitter to once again express his concerns regarding Ethereum and the project’s future.
Ethereum is still the second-largest cryptocurrency, with the current price of $184.32 and a market cap of nearly $20 billion, at the time of writing. The coin also has a daily trading volume of $8.90 billion, which makes it the third most-traded cryptocurrency around the world.
However, while Ethereum remains the largest blockchain-based development platform, not everyone agrees that it is as deserving of its position as it may seem. Bitcoin developer Tuur Demeester, recently posted about the project on Twitter, expressing his concerns about ETH.
According to Demeester, Ethereum’s culture is ‘antithetical to the cypherpunk ethos.’ As such, it can only lead the project to greater centralization and make it dysfunctional, as Demeester argues.
Imo Ethereum's culture is antithetical to the cypherpunk ethos, and as a result the project will become ever more centralized and dysfunctional over time. Four quotes to illustrate: pic.twitter.com/tRe1xXSHyF
— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) November 3, 2019
Is Ethereum becoming more centralized?
In order to prove his point, Demeester posted four tweets, one of which was originally published by the developer Vlad Zamfir, while the other three were posted by Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin.
Vlad Zamfir’s tweet states that trust reduction is not a cypherpunk value, but an authoritarian attempt to shut down blockchain governance. One of Buterin’s tweets indicates states that,
The idea of average users personally validating the entire history of the system is a weird mountain man fantasy.
Not The First Time Demeester Has Spoken Out
These, and other thoughts expressed by Ethereum developers, have caused Demeester to go on other anti-Ethereum rants in the past. In late December 2018, he posted a 50-tweet explanation regarding why he is against the project.
1/ People often ask me why I’m so “against” Ethereum. Why do I go out of my way to point out flaws or make analogies that put it in a bad light?
— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) December 28, 2018
Back then, he stated all of the flaws that he believes Ethereum had, including the fact that its culture and architecture are opposite of Bitcoin’s, as well as that Ethereum is not money, not safe, and not scalable — words that were actually written by Vlad Zamfir himself, on May 1st, 2017.
Ethereum isn't safe or scalable. It is immature experimental tech. Don't rely on it for mission critical apps unless absolutely necessary!
— Vlad Zamfir (@VladZamfir) March 4, 2017
In conclusion, despite the strong optimism regarding Ethereum, there are still issues that the project has not addressed for years, now. There is also a real possibility that it might not address them in years to come, which is one of Demeester’s chief concerns. However, the worst-case scenario, as he presented it, is that Ethereum will actually become more centralized, and less functional as time goes by.
What do you think about Ethereum? Do you think that Tuur Demeester is right, or that such claims are wrong? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock: Twitter @TuurDemeester @VladZamfir
