Ethereum has long been the target of criticism from die-hard Bitcoin maximalists who believe that Bitcoin is the only valuable cryptocurrency, despite the fact that Ethereum holds the second-highest percentage of the total cryptocurrency market value.
Now another Bitcoin maximalist, Steve Barbour, has called the leading smart contracts platform rubbish.
Bitcoin Maximalist Makes Controversial Claim About Ethereum
In a social media post on His argument essentially boils down to Ethereum’s failure to attract investors from the open market and nothing else.
Ethereum is garbage. The free market does not want it and the conquered market still does not know what it is for.
— Steve Barbour (@SGBarbour) October 16, 2023
Barbour is the founder of Upstream Data, a mining infrastructure company that builds off-grid Bitcoin mining rigs. His claim comes on the heels of Ethereum’s abandonment rewards plummet to new lows.
The number of Ethereum in staking pools has grown steadily in recent months; however, this has not been accompanied by increased profitability. According to CoinGecko, liquid staking protocols accounted for 43.7% of the total 26.4 million ETH staked in August 2023.
The annual yield (APY) from ETH staking has decreased over the years, from 18% in 2020 to 3% in October. Since 2022, these protocols have paid out 100,000 ETH in staking incentives every quarter, but the low APY has led many investors to wonder whether staking ETH is still worth it.
Barbor et al Bitcoin maximalists claim that Ethereum is not as decentralized as Bitcoin, especially considering that the blockchain recently transitioned from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus process.
Most of them believe that Bitcoin is the only ‘real’ cryptocurrency and that all other cryptocurrencies are worthless. Bitcoin maximalists have also been critical of other cryptocurrencies apart from Ethereum. Max Kaiser, another strong Bitcoin proponent, has done just that recently claimed that XRP is centralized.
ETH price remains firmly above $1,500 | Source: ETHUSD on Tradingview.com
Reactions and reactions
Ethereum has proven to be more than garbage, as evidenced by its huge number of supporters and large ecosystem. However, some Bitcoin supporters agreed with the maximalist.
Agreed. It’s full of speculators
— Carnival_Poe (@Carnival_Poe) October 17, 2023
The free market Ethereum now has $1,550. ETH has witnessed a price drop of 1.65% in the last 24 hours and remains weaker against Bitcoin.
On the other hand, Bitcoin has increased in dominance over altcoins. Most of the money and attention has flowed into Bitcoin, with the crypto witnessing a 6.39% increase in the past seven days.
As a result, ETH bulls have struggled to break above $1,600 and the crypto is now trading around the $1,550 support zone. If the bulls fail to hold this level, a new level could emerge dropping to just $1,430.
Featured image from Forbes, chart from Tradingview.com