Bitcoin Enthusiast Michael Saylor Questions Ethereum’s Reliability and Security

Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of business-intelligence software firm, MicroStrategy, questioned Ethereum’s overall soundness in terms of its technology and ethics at Blockchain Economy Istanbul Wednesday. 

Saylor, whose company holds 129,218 Bitcoin worth approximately $2.8 billion, according to Bitpush Terminal data, is a massive Bitcoin enthusiast, constantly promoting the world’s number one cryptocurrency by market cap. He is also a firm believer in Bitcoin as the only cryptocurrency that will last in the future, and thus is skeptical of other cryptocurrencies. 

As for Ethereum, Saylor noted that Ethereum’s co-founder and figurehead, Vitalik Buterin, said that they network is only 40% last week and laid out a three-to-four year roadmap. Therefore, Saylor claimed that the protocol will not be completed or stable for at least three years. 

In addition, Saylor suggested that Ethereum hasn’t been battle-tested, which leads to concerns about the protocol’s technical reliability and security. 

"'Technically sound' means I need to see the protocol function for that thing after about five to 10 years,” Saylor said. “So we don’t know that, either. Right? Because if you are hard forking and changing it, every time you do a big upgrade you introduce new attack surfaces.” 

Saylor stated that ethically speaking, he needs to know if Buterin and other developers have the ability to change the network. 

“I need to know that no one at the Ethereum foundation, no individual can change the protocol because if they could change the protocol it makes it a security and if it makes it a security, then it’s not going to become global money," Saylor said.

These comments came shortly after Ethereum 10th shadow fork went live, bringing them even closer to their highly anticipated merge in mid-September. That announcement brought Ethereum up 8.41% in the last 24 hours, valuing the digital asset at $1,501. 

Bitcoin on the other hand, is up 2.82%, trading at $21,529, according to Bitpush Terminal data.  

While Saylor hasn’t directly commented on Ethereum on his Twitter, his last tweet talks about Bitcoin saying, “Bitcoin offers a sound ethical, technical, & economic foundation for the emerging digital asset economy and will be the primary beneficiary of the current wave of crypto regulation & rationalization.” 

Author: Tyler Irvin

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