The debate over the health, success and long-term viability of ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, resurfaced when Mike Alfred, a prominent value investor, declared that ethereum (eth) seems “sick.”
Bill Morgan, a lawyer interested in digital assets, quickly challenged this view. Morgan disagreed with Mike Alfred’s opinion, which painted a bleak picture of ethereum.
Mike Alfred’s skepticism about ethereum
Mike Alfred, known for his committed value investing, recently expressed his views on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). In his post, Alfred called eth “sick” and argued that its much-touted promise as the “world computer” and a platform for “ultrasound money” has not been fulfilled.
Alfred added fuel to his fire by stating that decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (nft) initiatives, two pillars of ethereum‘s appeal, have been “largely abandoned.”
Going further, Alfred raised eyebrows by suggesting that eth co-founder Vitalik Buterin, among other experts, was “exploiting the protocol for his benefit.”
The investor also addressed what he perceives as ethereum‘s vulnerability, saying that it could be easy for the government to censor transactions on the ethereum network. To complete the criticism of him, Alfred announced that he would divest his holdings in eth.
ethereum looks sick. The global narratives about money by computer and ultrasound have failed. Defi and nft have been largely abandoned. Vitalik and other experts are ransacking the protocol and governments are easily censoring transactions. It is a disaster. Today I am selling my eth.
– Mike Alfred (@mikealfred) October 9, 2023
Bill Morgan’s response to Alfred’s claims
In his own style, Bill Morgan counterargued by digging up an earlier post by Alfred. Morgan highlighted some of Alfred’s previous predictions that many in the crypto community considered “wrong.” Alfred had previously claimed that Cardano was a “flawed” project and had labeled Hex and XRP as securities.
Morgan questioned Alfred’s credibility by pointing out these past statements, especially the statement that XRP is a security. Morgan’s implication was clear: Alfred had been wrong with previous assessments of him, so was this recent criticism of ethereum another error in judgment?
I wonder if he will be as wrong with this assessment as he was when he stated that XRP is a security. https://t.co/75ED9uKxyK pic.twitter.com/X69QtJeB8w
– bill morgan (@Belisarius2020) October 9, 2023
Furthermore, Morgan was not the only one who contradicted Alfred’s opinion. A look at the comments under Alfred’s post showed majority disagreement. One user, Jesse Eckel, was particularly articulate. Eckel commented: “Ironically, nothing you said here is true.”
Eckel cited eth‘s achievements, highlighting its position as the “most widely used cryptographic layer for application development” and the increase in nft volume, which surpassed $200 million the previous month. In a final comment to Alfred, Eckel said: “Hopefully you can see that you have become tribally aligned and that this is causing irrational opinions.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
