The last few years, price performances notwithstanding, have seen the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities often at each other’s throats, with labels of “maximalist” and “shitcoiner” being thrown around generously. In a way, the aforementioned debate is a reflection of how strongly positioned and dominant both Bitcoin and Ethereum are. In fact, the same seems to have gathered a little more pace of late, especially on the back of expectations that ETH might soon flip BTC.
The Bitcoin v. Ethereum debate was one of the subjects discussed on the latest episode of Bankless, with ‘altcoin slayer’ Eric Wall the guest this time around. Wall, the popular ‘digital biologist’ within the crypto-community, has for long been hailed as controversial for his tendency to break ranks with the Bitcoin community.
Bitcoin maximalists, according to Wall, often get a lot of stuff wrong, with the analyst claiming that Bitcoiners “mistrust any type of innovation that comes from outside the Bitcoin community.”
According to the analyst, most in the Bitcoin community fail to recognize and appreciate the research associated with building L2 solutions on Ethereum, with Wall going on to draw a comparison between Lightning and roll-ups on Ethereum, for instance.
“Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum were providing benefits that we couldn’t do in Bitcoin because we don’t have statelessness, we don’t have the virtual machine in Bitcoin or the op codes, if you will.”
He added,
“Zk roll-ups and Optimistic roll-ups are excellent layer 2 constructions and we can’t build those on Bitcoin unless we upgrade the system in a little way.”
What’s more, Wall also accused Bitcoiners in the community of “not acting in good faith” with respect to the technological side of things.
Here, it’s worth noting that Wall’s views have been met with overwhelming opposition in the past, with the likes of John Carvalho and Peter Todd calling him “potentially dangerous.”
Does that make Eric Wall, CIO of Arcane Assets, an altcoin or a “shitcoiner,” as maximalists would say? No, said the analyst, with Wall going on to assert that he retains a lot of faith in Bitcoin and believes the crypto-asset “has legs” as digital gold. That being said, according to the exec, Ethereum is the more interesting project to look at if one wants to see what the blockchain protocol is capable of.
Curiously, Wall’s views are very similar to those aired by Kraken’s Dan Held a while back. The exec, a proper Bitcoiner, has in the past acknowledged the need for Bitcoiners to get out of their echo chamber to “get the message of Bitcoin everywhere we can.”
