Buterin's billions, Rothschild's IMMO, Bitcoin fee, Smart contracts and other issues that Vitalik Buterin and Nouriel Roubini may discuss at the upcoming debates
Twitter often becomes the social network of loud statements and verbal battles for notorious people. This time, Twitter became the base for two clashing paradigms: the traditional financial system - Nouriel Roubini, and the newest blockchain economy - Vitalik Buterin. The crypto-community expects a heated debate with a prize of 1 million USD, but the place and time have not yet been decided by the opponents.
Nouriel Roubini, also known as Dr.Doom, one of the most respected global financial experts in the world, is today a ruthless critic of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He was one of the few economists who predicted the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, and now he predicts that the cryptocurrency bubble will burst. Among other things, Roubini believes that cryptocurrency is more centralized than North Korea, and Vitalik Buterin is a “dictator for life”. Roubini has a solid academic pedigree, and he teaches Economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
In early October, Nouriel Roubini testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem. His testimony was named "Crypto is the Mother of All Scams and (Now Busted) Bubbles, While Blockchain Is The Most Over-Hyped Technology Ever, No Better than a Spreadsheet/Database."
It is worth noting, that the testimony and Roubini’s comments on Twitter clearly indicate his awareness in the field of cryptocurrency. Most of his statements (though not all) are either one-sidedly correct or factual, in contrast to the comments of other famous people from the traditional financial world. And, logically, the opinions of Buterin and Roubini do not coincide. As a result, Laura Shin, a crypto and blockchain journalist, invited them to hold a debate on her podcast.
“Yeah, sure why not?” - Buterin accepted the offer. After some time, his opponent agreed to the debate, but only with one condition - that a person who does not support any of the points of view of the participants in the discussion will act as a moderator of the debate. Vitalik Buterin nominated @_Kevin_Pham as a moderator.
Perhaps you may not know, but back in May this year, Nouriel Roubini held a debate with the founder of ConsenSys and the co-founder of Ethereum, Joseph Lubin. After the debate, Nouriel posted a link of the discussion with Lubin and seemed to hint that he had won the fight. However, Nouriel tried to talk about his point of view as loudly as possible, even interrupting Joseph when he spoke, flooding him with further questions that Lubin could not answer.
How will Roubini behave this time and what questions will the opponents discuss? It is most likely that the debate will focus on certain topics that the pair have already argued about on Twitter. We analyzed the tweets of Vitalik Buterin and Nouriel Roubini and outlined the main topics that may be touched upon at the debates.
What issues may be discussed by Mr. Buterin and Dr. Doom?
- Buterin is a billionaire at the head of the centralized Ethereum cartel
Nouriel Roubini calls Vitalik Buterin a life-long dictator and believes that they, along with Joe Lubin during the “criminal pre-mining sale”, which made them billions, received 75% of the total Ethereum supply.
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1050112391160188929[/embed]
Vitalik Buterin in response stated that he never possessed more than 0.9% of the volume of supply of the second largest capitalization of cryptocurrency, and the amount of his assets did not approach $1 billion.
[embed]https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1050125475253637120[/embed]
He also published a link to his wallet, where you can see that he has 365 thousand coins (about $ 74 million at the current course).
[embed]https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1050126908589887488[/embed]
Perhaps Vitalik has additional wallets? And how are Roubini’s convictions about the centralization of Ethereum’s power supported? We need to objectively understand these issues, because the outcome will determine the degree of community confidence in the second most important cryptocurrency - Ethereum, on the basis of which thousands of ICOs are conducted.
- Buterin and anti-semitism against Rothschild’s IMMO
In May of this year, Buterin began a public discussion about the power of the Rothschilds. He asked his subscribers: “Are 'the Rothschilds' actually remotely as powerful and coordinated as the conspiracy theorists seem to believe, or are they just a group of old-money socialites and all that other stuff is overhyped?” At the same Vitalik held a poster with the inscription “STOP IMMO”. IMMO, a project of the Rothschild’s reserve cryptocurrency, first became known a month earlier, and caused this discussion.
[embed]https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1000514342268190721[/embed]
At the same time, Nouriel Roubini called Buterin’s statements about the Rothschilds “obviously and clearly anti-semitic”.
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1000756339138793472[/embed]
Also this week Nouriel Roubini accused the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange of anti-Semitism. It was reported that an employee of the exchange shared confidential information about the investigation of the manipulation of the Tether course on October 15. The expert believes that Bitfinex linked the manipulation of the Tether course with the Rothschild’s IMMO “to cover their shady tracks.”
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1054466030737575936[/embed]
Why did the emergence of the Rothschild’s IMMO on the cryptocurrency market excite Vitalik Buterin?
- Cryptocurrency is not money, and can never be
In his testimony, Nouriel Roubini described why cryptocurrency can never become a convenient means of payment. Roubini highlighted the following problem - a Bitcoin fee of $55. He announced similarly on his Twitter account:
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1051460386489331713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1051460386489331713&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbreakermag.com%2Fwhy-is-nouriel-roubini-taking-over-my-twitter-feed%2F[/embed]
But according to recent open data, the commission for one transaction on the Bitcoin Blockchain does not exceed $1.
Can cryptocurrencies replace usual money and why is the cryptocurrency transaction fee still lower than bank transfer fees?
- The looming financial crisis
Roubini is famous for predicting the crisis of 2008, but he also made some incorrect predictions. Buterin’s response was a Tweet in which he predicted the following crisis:
[embed]https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1050103887170957312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1050103887170957312&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.investinblockchain.com%2Fbuterin-roubini-debate%2F[/embed]
Roubini, in response to Buterin, accused him of being unprofessional:
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1050107909122772992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1050107909122772992&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.investinblockchain.com%2Fbuterin-roubini-debate%2F[/embed]
Can Vitalik Buterin predict the impending financial crisis?
- Roubini’s criticism of smart contracts on the Ethereum platform
Nouriel Roubini believes that smart contracts are not smart at all and are highly susceptible to various bugs, and only hardfork can be their solution:
[embed]https://twitter.com/Nouriel/status/1002557473201541120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1002557473201541120&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fforklog.com%2Fdoktor-dum-smart-kontrakty-ne-yavlyayutsya-umnymi%2F[/embed]
What Roubini probably don’t know is that the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a secure, sandboxed solution that provides the runtime environment for smart contracts on Ethereum. This is one of the reasons why the first native, multi-chain system in the world, created by PCHAIN, fully supports EVM.
What will Vitalik Buterin, who is at the center of the separation of the Ethereum network at ETH and ETC as a result of The DAO hacking, say to this?
The planned debates are very important for the crypto community, as their result will determine trust and favor for one or another economic paradigm. But so far, opponents have not yet agreed on the place and time of the debate. We can only wait for updates and monitor the situation.