Web3 Daily

View Original

​Is Ethereum taking momentum away from Bitcoin?

...speaking of Bitcoin Maxis (see story above)...

Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful - a peer-to-peer crypto marketplace - just announced that users will no longer be able to be trade Ethereum on the platform.

He gave 3 reasons in a tweet (paraphrased below):

  1. Now that ETH has moved from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, it is now "essentially a digital form of fiat."

  2. ETH is controlled by a small group of people, meaning less decentralization and more chance of a future state where you need permission to use it.

  3. ETH mainly "thrives because of tokenization”; and, "the tokens that ETH has spawned have been scams that have robbed people of billions.”

    Translation: folks can make new crypto coins/tokens using Ethereum, which adds to ETH's ecosystem - but many of them have ended up being scams.

Raymondo used some pretty strong language to discredit Ethereum in favor of Bitcoin.

Things like: "Our industry is under attack right now."

And: "[Ethereum-based tokens] have stolen valuable momentum away from Bitcoin and cost us years on our mission."

Here's our two cents:

Sure, Ethereum has it's problems. The fact that a small number of entities own a large amount of ETH could be a cause for concern.

But what Ray seems to be missing from his argument is the fact that an ecosystem doesn't exist with just one player.

Decentralization is looking to expand beyond just the financial system.

To ownership of your data, games, social platforms, and everywhere you interact in Web3.

And which blockchain is powering the majority of this ecosystem right now?

Ethereum.

Plus, it's not like Paxful users can no longer trade Ethereum...they'll just go somewhere else.

Either way, it's gotten Paxful some solid publicity.