A disturbance in the unicorn force: Even Ethereum, whose ethos is supposed to be positivity and acceptance, is not immune to the toxic online discourse that has become a staple of the cryptocurrency world. Now, vitriolic infighting has pushed one of its most prominent developers to step away from the project.
What exactly is going on? A good place to start if you want to make sense of the fiasco is an open letter that dozens of prominent Ethereum figures have penned to the community. Its central message is one of support for core developer Afri Schoedon, who they say has been subject to online harassment and threats that "have gone far beyond acceptable standards of debate." The attacks were apparently in response to a recent tweet (now deleted) in which Schoedon seemed to reflect a view that Parity, the blockchain startup he works for, may be building a more compelling product than Ethereum. Quickly, Ethereum users began attacking him on Twitter and Reddit, many of them calling on him to step down due to a conflict of interest.
"Under stress from this backlash and to protect himself and his family from threats coming from unknown internet users, he made the decision to leave his position as a core Ethereum developer," the open letter reads.
Schoedon has said his tweet should have been worded differently, since Polkadot, the blockchain interoperability system that Parity is building, isn't a direct competitor to Ethereum. He was trying to express impatience at the pace of Ethereum's progress towards Serenity, an ambitious planned upgrade, he tells Breaker. "The focus of my tweet wasn't Polkadot or competition, but Serenity, which is, in my eyes, rolled out too slowly, and I fear that it [won't] matter anymore once we get there." (See also "Ethereum thinks it can change the world. It's running out of time to prove it.")
America's least populous state has quickly become the most friendly one to blockchains. Although crypto-tokens challenge the frameworks of existing US financial laws and regulations, federal policymakers have shown no sign that creating new crypto-specific laws or regulations is on the near-term agenda. In the meantime, several state legislatures have begun trying their hand in an attempt to draw blockchain businesses. But no other state has been nearly as aggressive as Wyoming. It just passed three more crypto-specific bills, adding to the landmark pieces of legislation it passed in 2018.
Caitlin Long, a Wyoming native and former Wall Street executive turned prominent blockchain technology evangelist, has spearheaded this effort behind the scenes. According to Breaker, Long's Wyoming mission began in 2017, when she realized to her dismay that a state law made it illegal for her to make a donation to her alma mater, the University of Wyoming, in Bitcoin. One of the first bills Long and her team of advocates shepherded through the legislature last year exempted cryptocurrencies from that law. Another one, touching on a hot button issue at the federal level, created a category of digital asset, called "utility tokens" that are exempt from the state's financial securities laws, which govern investments like stocks and bonds.
One of the bills Wyoming just passed makes it easier for cryptocurrency startups to get bank accounts. Another makes it legal to turn stocks and bonds into digital tokens. And the third designates digital assets as property. It's all meant to attract innovative businesses, and perhaps even turn Wyoming into another "Crypto Valley" (there's already one in Switzerland). "There's going to be an influx" of financial services companies into Wyoming, Long tells CoinDesk. Many of them might have to find it on the map first, though.
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Fill your pockets with these newsy tidbits.
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Samsung has confirmed that its new Galaxy phone will have a feature for securely storing cryptographic keys for digital assets. (The Block)
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Japanese job recruiting platform Recruit has invested an undisclosed amount in the startup building the MimbleWimble-base privacy coin Beam. (Finance Magnates)
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The SEC has settled charges against another ICO project, called Gladius Network, for selling unregistered securities. (CoinDesk)
