Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin has thrown shade on prominent economist and cryptocurrency skeptic Nouriel Roubini, in response to Roubini’s earlier statements calling him a “dictator” and describing decentralization in Crypto as a “myth”.
In a tweet, Buterin subtly hinted that Roubini has no idea what he is talking about and as such he should not comment on cryptocurrency.
Buterin ‘Predicts’ Financial Crisis
Writing on his Twitter handle, Buterin said:
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".
9:20 PM - Oct 10, 2018
The tweet attracted a furious response from Roubini who then responded to Buterin saying:
Vitalik, just shut up & speak about stuff that you can claim u know a lil about. You have promising Proof of Stake since 2013 & we are still waiting for a system that is scalable, decentralized & secure. But that is impossible as your inconsistent trinity principle proves.
At press time, Roubini was still involved in a Twitter scrimmage with supporters of crypto, doubling down on his stated opinion of crypto as a “scam” and “fake wealth”.
It will be recalled that the current conflict began when Roubini – popularly referred to as ‘Dr Doom’ because of his negative crypto predictions – recently posted on Twitter that decentralisation of cryptocurrencies is a ‘myth, and that even ‘North Korea’ is more decentralised than crypto. He further described developers such as Buterin as “centralized Dictators”
In the aftermath of his initial tweet, several Twitter users immediately responded saying that Roubini’s comments are grossly oversimplified, especially since different cryptocurrencies have different degrees of decentralization.
Buterin, who is known to be vocal about crypto issues replied:
“I don’t think that’s a fair characterization; if you look more deeply at the actual processes of ethereum governance you’ll find that while a technical elite does exist (as in all cryptocurrencies), my own involvement is much less pivotal than it seems from the outside.”
While he agreed with Roubini that centralization of developers, exchanges and miners or validators is an issue, he however added that they are actively implementing different ways to mitigate this (such as. multiple client implementations, decentralized exchanges, and various protocol features in PoS).
“Blockchain is Overhyped”
Roubini on his part, spent most of today delivering his testimony at a senate hearing on cryptocurrencies. He was quoted by Bloomberg describing blockchain technology to the U.S. Senate as “the most over hyped technology ever”, which is “nothing better than a glorified spreadsheet or database.”
Continuing his tirade on his Twitter account a few hours later Roubini said in a tweet:
“99% of crypto land is one shitcoin traded for another shitcoin. And the average shitcoin lost 90% or more of its value in the last year. So Crypto Land is Crap Land, a cesspool of lunatics with severe Freudian scatological obsessions that swim 24/7 in their own stinking shit.”
