Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, caused controversy over the weekend when he warned that cryptocurrencies could lose all their value at any time. The warning, which was given in the form of a tweet, elicited a number of surprised and hostile reactions.

"Reminder: cryptocurrencies are still a new and hyper-volatile asset class, and could drop to near-zero at any time," Buterin tweeted. "Don't put in more money than you can afford to lose. If you're trying to figure out where to store your life savings, traditional assets are still your safest bet."

His words come after a two-month period of extreme volatility. After the price of most cryptocurrencies surges to record highs in December, the gains were virtually wiped out over the course of January. Even as coins recover and bitcoin breaches $10,000 again, experts warn that there is still risk in this new market.

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/964838207215955969

Scanning the replies, one can find many stubborn enthusiasts responding that Buterin is off the mark.

"Vitalik my friend are you okay?" wrote @SrCapilla. @Farbod_tweet replied, "Vitalik every one knows that by now. By sending such messages all you do is create unnecessary panic."

Other tweets demonstrated ideological fealty to crypto's promise to upend the current economic system. @theQSmind replied, stating that traditional assets were not the safest bet. They added, "We live in the most volatile time in history. Crypto is the answer to the maladies of the current system." Similar responses inundated the coin innovator.

Perhaps the most telling responses came from scammers. Buterin's tweet was targeted by bots boasting about schemes asking for 0.50 or 0.70 ETH to receive 5 ETH or 7 ETH in return, respectively.

The tweet did not appear to affect the price of ethereum itself, as Buterin tweeted midday on Saturday.

He wasn't the only minter to make such a comment during the past few days. Brad Garlinghouse, co-creator of Ripple, gave the same ominous advisement at a recent Goldman Sachs conference. In fact, he foresaw that most cryptocurrencies would die because “It's not clear what the use case is. It's not clear the what value proposition is." He was excluding ripple, of course.

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