After an american economist Nouriel Roubini labeled Ethereum founders as thieves and scammers, Vitalik Buterin provided detailed information on all his holdings and trades.
It is not a secret that the crypto community is divided into two parts, the first is actively supporting digital currencies, while the other one is zealously criticizing cryptos. One of the most prominent figures of the latter is an american economist Nouriel Roubini, known for predicting the most recent global financial crisis and called Dr. Doom. He has criticized the crypto industry quite long, and one of his latest targets of attack is Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum founder.
It all started with Buterin’s prediction that the market would see a financial crisis between now and 2021. Buterin stated that he didn’t come from a place of analysis of the market or even from volatility, but to simply be the “guru” to expose the crisis.
I officially predict a financial crisis some time between now and 2021.
Not because I have any special knowledge or even actually think that, but so that I can have a ~25% (or whatever) chance of later being publicly acclaimed as "a guru who predicted the last financial crisis".
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 10, 2018
Roubini was quick to respond. He said:
“Vitalik, just shut up and speak about stuff that you can claim u know about. You have promising Proof of Stake since 2013 and we are still waiting for a system that is scalable, decentralized & secure. But that is impossible as your inconsistent trinity principle proves.”
The response of Buterin was as follows:
“Design is basically done and we’re in development stages now, referring to the proof-of-stake protocol.”
Roubini went on to attack the crypto sphere as a whole, using today’s drop in prices as an argument. He said:
“The Crypto Meltdown & Apocalypse continues. Yesterday ETH, XRP & other key crypto-currencies plunged another 10% for a total loss from peak of 90%. Crypto is in total meltdown but all the panicking scammers, bots, shills, trolls, criminals, carnival barkers are out to attack me!”
He mentioned lots of arguments about cryptocurrencies: that they have no intrinsic value; that they impose transaction costs too high for small payments, which makes them useless as currencies; and that they use up too much energy to generate.
Further, on his Twitter, Roubini labeled Buterin and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin as thieves and scammers.
@VitalikButerin was the ring-leader – together with Joe Lubin – of the criminal pre-mining sale/scam that created Ether. They stole 75% of the Ether supply and became instant "billionaires" of fake wealth. https://t.co/d3ltYuce4u
— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) October 10, 2018
In response, Vitalik Buterin explained how much he possesses and where the funds come from.
I never personally held more than ~0.9% of all ETH, and my net worth never came close to $1b. Also, I'm pretty sure there are no criminal laws against pre-mining.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 10, 2018
Buterin also stated that as there are no laws prohibiting pre-mining, it was irresponsible for Roubini to call him a criminal. And if the public knows that the currency is pre-mined, the ecosystem does not take the project as a scam.
Later, Ethereum founder revealed details on all his holdings and trades. The developer holds no more than 365,003 ETH, currently worth just under $72 million. In 2017, this amount would have been worth more than $500 million, but according to the Ethereum founder, he had less than 0.9% of all ETH at the time.
According to Buterin, the Ethereum Foundation currently holds around $660,000, and owns around $3 million.
Earlier, Ethereum was planning to launch Constantinople hardfork, a system-wide upgrade scheduled on the test network Ropsten. However, last week, Ethereum developers announced postponing the event, saying that the main reason for the delay is the recently discovered vulnerability in one of the five Constantinople upgrades.
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