NYU Economist Nouriel Roubini has been known for his prediction regarding the 2008 financial crisis. However, he is also known for his anti-crypto stance. In his tweets, he claims that Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum is a scammer. He claims that Buterin stole ¾ of all the available Ether and it made him an “instant billionaire”.
He answers to these accusations explaining that his net worth never reached a billion dollars. He also commented that there are no laws that prohibit pre-mining, therefore it was irresponsible on Roubini’s part to accuse him of being a criminal.
Speculations and Doubts
Buterin also tweeted that he never held more than 0.9% of all ETH. There has been a great amount of speculation over the years regarding the fortune of the Ethereum co-founder. In fact, there are comments saying that Vitalik Buterin did not disclose the funds of the Ethereum foundation. He responded saying that “The Ethereum Foundation only ever owned 3m, and now has 660K; the rest was spent on development”.
He also added that he did not have most of the ETH that he currently has when the cryptocurrency reached its peak. He noted that when he had 0.9% of all ETH, the supply was only around 75 million. When the price was able to go as high as $1,250, he had less than 0.9%.
Active on Social Media
Vitalik Buterin is quite active on social media which is a good thing especially when there are accusations and questions. He even mentioned that even in “challenging times”, he considers himself as a bullish Ethereum hodler.
This is something that can bring confidence to the market. In fact, Ethereum was overtaken twice by Ripple after Ripple announced that it is going to have its xRapid tested by three different companies.
Ethereum’s Future?
During San Francisco Blockchain Week, Vialik Buterin discussed the development of Ethereum core. He clarified the role that he played in developing the Ethereum core during the event and also stated that he is also involved in the development of Plasma Cash technology.
The Plasma Cash technology has been proposed in order to improve overall scalability and security of the Ethereum blockchain. Plasma Cash is an improved Plasma technology that was first introduced in August 2017.
Discussing the development of the Ethereum core side, he mentioned that “We really are at the point where all of the kind of big fundamental problems are basically solved, and it’s more a whole spattering of little things, about how to make it more efficient”.
Among the problems that they are trying to solve is transitions between validator sets. And this is going to make the Casper beacon chain more efficient.
Buterin also explained that his role in Ethereum today is to research and relevant subjects. And for this reason, he was involved in different matters such as sharding, protocol economics, and plasma. However, he also pointed out that the start of Ethereum was “unambitious”. But as soon as his idea gained traction, it has evolved to what Ethereum is today. It has been able to build a community especially in building DAPPs.
