In Brief:
- Ethereum co-founder and creator, Vitalik Buterin slammed El Salvador by calling him “Bitcoin Maximalists”
- Article 7 in El Salvador Bitcoin law forces companies to use Bitcoin
- According to Buterin, without educating people, forcing them to use Bitcoin can lead to scams and fraud
Ethereum Co-founder, and Creator, Vitalik Buterin condemned El Salvador president Nayib Bukele on Friday to compel businesses in the country to adopt Bitcoin. Buterin called Bukele “Bitcoin maximalists”.
“Making it mandatory for businesses to accept a specific cryptocurrency is contrary to the ideals of freedom that are supposed to be so important to the crypto space,” Buterin wrote in a Reddit forum comment.
In September, El Salvador announced Bitcoin as legal tender along with the U.S. dollar. For individuals, Bitcoin use is optional, but it is mandatory for all companies to accept Bitcoin.
According to article 7, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law, “Every economic agent must accept bitcoin as payment when offered to him by whoever acquires a good or service. Those who, by evident and notorious fact, do not have access to the technologies that allow them to carry out transactions in bitcoin are excluded from the obligation expressed in Art. 7 of this law. The State will promote the necessary training and mechanisms so that the population can access bitcoin transactions.”
To counter this law, Buterin stated that this strategy of forceful adoption of Bitcoin without educating people is “reckless” and “risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed,”
“Shame on everyone (ok, fine, I’ll call out the main people responsible: shame on Bitcoin maximalists) who are uncritically praising him [Bukele],” wrote Buterin.
What about Ethereum?
One user of Reddit asked Buterin what if Ethereum was included in this act instead of Bitcoin as a legal tender.
On this question, Buterin responded by quoting that he had criticized Ethereum users and applications in the past. He thinks that “mandating a specific cryptocurrency” is against the crypto’s idea of freedom.
Another Reddit user raised questions on the buying dip, Buterin responded on it by calling it “simpler and dumber hypothesis,”
“Both for political reasons and because he’s a human being like the rest of us, he just loves being praised by people he considers powerful (ie. Americans). Bitcoin maximalists are a very easy community to get to praise you: you just have to be in a position of power and do or say nice things about them and their coin,” said Buterin.
