Bitcoin vs Ethereum
During the conversation, McCormack and Rettig frequently circled back to the question of centralization, and how much control the Ethereum Foundation had over the blockchain.
For starters, Rettig noted the difference between the Bitcoin and Ethereum Whitepapers. He said,
“The Bitcoin Whitepaper itself is immutable, like the Genesis block. The Ethereum Whitepaper is a markdown document on a wiki on GitHub.”
Speaking about the Ethereum’s difficulty bomb, Rettig noted that pushing it back was making the issuance increase, thus affecting users’ holdings. About the per-block subsidy and other decisions related to the Ethereum blockchain, Rettig made a troubling claim. He stated that economists were not consulted, adding,
“We don’t know what the right amount to pay for insurance is. We don’t, genuinely. The best thing we can do is like, look at what Bitcoin is doing, look at what other networks are doing, okay? [For example] Ethereum Classic was attacked, [so] it’s not paying enough – we need to pay more.”
Furthermore, Rettig added that “pseudonymous whales” had reached out to him before. He claimed that they “nudged” him or sent funds in order to have him influence changes in the mining algorithm.
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