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Vitalik Buterin vs. Michael Saylor: “Completely INSANE”
By Davide Grammatica
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin lashed out at Michael Saylor, deeming his recent comments with respect to Bitcoin's self-custody “insane”
Buterin vs. Saylor
MicroStrategy founder , Michael Saylor, recently stated how “regulated” crypto custody solutions are not to blame , and how criticism in this direction stems mainly from “paranoid crypto-anarchists.”
An opinion criticized by a large part of the crypto community, and added to sui in recent hours by Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum.
Following the interview with NZ Herald, Saylor was described by many supporters of self-custody as a “not a true bitcoiner,” and Vitalik seems to embrace the same line, relaunching on the value of Bitcoin as a tool “essential for human progress” (a judgment also shared with Saylor, but from other perspectives).
“I think Michael Saylor’s comments are completely insane, “ Buterin wrote in X. “He seems to explicitly advocate a regulatory capture approach to protect cryptocurrencies, but there is a lot of precedent revealing how this strategy can fail, and to me that is not what cryptocurrencies are about.”
I probably did more than most to spread the "mountain man" trope (btw I consider those remarks of mine outdated; snarks and AA changed the tradeoff space completely), and I'll happily say that I think @saylor's comments are batshit insane.
He seems to be explicitly arguing for a…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 22, 2024
ETFs under scrutiny for decentralization
After all, trusting third-party custodians in the crypto world has always been seen as a limitation from which to extricate oneself in the crypto world. Starting with the fact that it was thanks to Bitcoin that a method (and a specially designed asset) was found to do this for the first time in history.
Self-custody is also essential to protect decentralization, improving network security and preserving participation in governance to promote innovation.
Obviously, with the introduction of BTC spot ETFs, this principle is being severely tested, but for Saylor, community concerns would have to be scaled back. For the president of MicroStrategy, preserving BTC through ETFs (and thus third-party entities such as BlackRock or Fidelity) would be “safer, ” as governments and regulators would be less enticed to target regulated entities than private entities.
