Vitalik Buterin fires back on article saying Ethereum is doomed - let's take rational look at the arguments...

Published by Tech Crunch two days ago, the article titled  "The collapse of ETH is inevitable" has received a lot of attention.

But what are we really looking at here? There's one huge factor we can't just gloss over - the author of the article is Jeremy Rubin - one of Stellar's advisers.

My point isn't any disrespect to Stellar or Rubin either, I own some Stellar. I own Ethereum too, so maybe since i'm a fan of both I can see this article for what it is - rivals making their cases for their product, and against their competitors.

The case Rubin is attempting to make is summed up in these key points:

● Gas isn't required to execute a contract on Ethereum's blockchain.

● Ethereum isn't even needed for as a mining reward "We’re able to incentivize miners to mine transactions without paying any fees in ETH whatsoever" as the article states.

● Leading to the conclusion - apps built on Ethereum (the blockchain) don't really need ETH (the token).

Ethereum's founder Vitalik Buterin took to Reddit to respond, saying in part:

"In Ethereum as it presently exists, this is absolutely true, and in fact if Ethereum were not to change, all parts of the author's argument (except the part about proof of stake, which would not even apply to Ethereum as it is today) would be correct. However, the community is strongly considering two proposals, both of which have the property that they enshrine the need to pay ETH at protocol level, and furthermore the ETH gets burned, so there's no way to de-facto take it out of the loop by making the medium-of-exchange loop go faster."

Which frankly, is the truth.  That's why I'm leaning towards labeling Rubin's arguments borderline misleading.  Let's pause for a second and ask - what tech-based project would still exist today, if the first version was the final version?

Rubin's argument is more along the lines of "If Apple stopped at the iPhone 1, no one would be buying them today".  In other words, his argument depends entirely on nothing changing.

While it's always way more exiting to get caught up in the heat of the argument, the fact is - any tech with developers who call the project "finished" is doomed. Ethereum does not fall into that category. To the credit of Ethereum Foundation, they are constantly evaluating places to improve, and following through with proposals to implement those changes.

Until that key factor changes - Ethereum is absolutely not headed towards collapse. They're simply part of the never-ending uphill battle, known better as "technology".
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Author: Ross Davis
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco News Desk