The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin said that the crypto community had reservations about Sam Bankman-Fried and his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. But the mainstream media paid attention to him as an industry leader due to his high-profile image.
Recently, Buterin had a podcast interview with Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi Ramamurthy. In an interview, he said, “I think a lot of people have this misconception that everybody deeply respected Sam and that he caught the entire ecosystem by surprise,”Â
“I think it is true that nobody expected a literal $8 billion blow up, but if you’re looking at Ethereum influencers like Anthony Sassano, a lot of them disrespected him and FTX from the beginning,” he added.
Buterin continued by saying that many people in the cryptocurrency community had doubts about Bankman-Fried since he seemed to have a clear vision of why cryptocurrency technology was valuable.
“He was just not able to articulate a vision of why crypto was good—he just clearly saw it as purely a business opportunity,” Buterin recalled. “It’s like, ‘Oh, hey, crypto is this thing where you can make money.'”
Buterin differed Bankman-Fried’s outlook with the foundational principle of cypherpunk ideology and decentralization goals which support projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Buterin underscores a misalignment in values.
“He just, I think, never really struck the community as a person who deeply believed it,” he said. “That more than anything else might really be the cause of the mistrust that existed already.”
The interview clarifies the complexity of the cryptocurrency industry, where well-known people and initiatives can generate conflicting responses from the community. Buterin also gives a deeper understanding of the ethos and values of the crypto space which is essential for building trust.
Also Read: Unseen Portrait of Vitalik Buterin Auction as NFT
