TL;DR Breakdown
- Vitalik Buterin says Bitcoin’s PoW mining model will affect its long-term value.
- Buterin says Ethereum is only serving the rich with the high transaction fees.
- Ethereum 2.0 will solve a lot of problems that are currently holding ETH back.
Bitcoin is closing in on that $60k mark, but Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin has expressed some harsh criticism and future concerns for the leading coin in the market. In his recent interview with the Stakeborg, Buterin has called BTCs PoW (Proof-of-Work) approach a ‘cultural mistake’.
The Ethereum co-founder has always been critical of BTC, but it has been a long time since he last publicly talked about the major coin’s downsides. Buterin also mentioned that it was surprising that Bitcoin is still not seeing the evident urgency and need to transition to PoS (Proof-of-Stake).
But his fears and concerns were not limited to Bitcoin. Surprisingly, Buterin mentioned that Ethereum also faces a significant risk of falling into a ‘cultural trap’ despite its unprecedented growth.
Will Ethereum become the rich men’s coin?
Buterin expressed that Etheremum seems to be serving a specific class or culture of people, something that goes beyond the grounds on which the network was developed. He fears that the high fees on the network could mean that Ethereum will only serve the rich. Buterin also said that the members of the community are already comparing ETH to Louis Vuitton.
However, he is very confident that the London upgrades and Ethereum 2.0 will solve a lot of those problems.
Buterin is a veteran in the crypto industry, and also a critical part of its growth. He revolutionized the Ethereum network and saw the company grow from 0 to $400 billion net value. But his perception and thoughts are always inclined towards the ethical aspects of this industry. Just days ago, Buterin also slammed El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption on a Reddit channel, calling it a reckless and maximalist approach.
Why is Bitcoin still using PoW?
Buterin isn’t the only one to criticize Bitcoin’s reluctance to move away from the PoW model. Earlier this year, Ripple‘s cofounder expressed that Bitcoin can’t remain the dominant cryptocurrency in the long term if they don’t consider a more carbon-neutral method like PoS.
However, Bitcoin is still sticking to PoW like glue because of security concerns. Developers need devices with more hashing power to make the network more secured and harder to hack or attack. More hashing power means more energy, which is why Bitcoin is still going strong on PoW.
However, it can’t be said the PoS is less secured by any measure. We can only assume that Bitcoin will be looking forward to Ethereum 2.0 and observe how well it does on PoS in terms of security before they even consider leaving the PoW model behind.
