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Ethereum faces an ideological crossroads with popular celebrity tokens
Wintermute co-founder Evgeny Gaevoy voiced a strong criticism of Ethereum leadership and their approach to building the blockchain. He believes that if Ethereum fails in the future, it will be due to his leadership rather than technical limitations.
It therefore seems that the ongoing debate over celebrity coins has intensified once again.
Gaevoy points to the contradiction in Ethereum’s goals as the reason. According to him, Ethereum’s “elite”, including Vitalik Buterin, are building a technology inherently suited to capitalism, but appear to have a socialist ideology.
There is huge money at stake
Gaevoy argues that these approaches are fundamentally different. He believes that Ethereum cannot build a capitalist system by aiming for socialist outcomes and asks leaders to choose a side.
The leader of Wintermute expressed a great inclination towards the profitable aspects of the digital economy. His reasons come from careful observation of blockchain technology. According to him, technology in this field “is incredibly conducive to the creation of systems based on purely capitalist incentives”
“You are either building capitalism or planned socialism,” Gaevoy said. “I choose capitalism in all its (often ugly!) glory. And if you’re not here for the glory, then a simple argument is: unlike socialism, capitalism actually works.”
Gaevoy’s point emerges in the context of the ongoing debate over celebrity memecoins. The trend has drawn criticism from many crypto figures and members, including. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
In a recent tweet, Buterin expressed discontent with celebrity memecoins, arguing that they provide no social value. He believes that financial efforts should have purposes that benefit society, such as healthcare, open source software, and the arts.
They just want the money!
In response to Buterin’s comments, Iggy Azalea, a singer who recently joined the celebrity memecoin trend, tweeted a sarcastic post. The post contained an image depicting Iggy as a mother breastfeeding a baby with Buterin’s face.
Azalea’s post received criticism from Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap. Although more neutral towards celebrity meme coins, Adams criticized Azalea’s response to Buterin and suggested that profits from such ventures could be used for social causes.
The Wintermute co-founder said he is on Azalea’s side in this debate. However, Gaevoy’s arguments also sparked disagreement. Some members of the crypto industry believe that Buterin’s stance against celebrity coins does not mean that Ethereum is pursuing a socialist path.
In response, Gaevoy said the fundamental principle is important. He preferred capitalism with modifications to address its negative aspects and was less interested in principles that seemed to use capitalism as a secondary tool.
On-chain data shows that Azalea’s Mother Iggy (MOTHER) token surpassed $0.1272 on June 6, defying the downtrend of other celebrity meme coins.
Mother Iggy (MOTHER) is up 134.70% over the past 7 days, outpacing the global cryptocurrency market and outperforming similar meme cryptocurrencies, which are down 5.30%.
Over the past few days, the market has witnessed a wave of celebrities and KOLs from various industries rushing to issue their own tokens. With the popularity and ease of token creation, these influencers can easily create tokens and then aggressively promote them on their own social media accounts, which often have large followings.
Fear of missing out (FOMO) and fan support can cause these token prices to skyrocket, attracting an influx of fresh cash for influencers. However, the consequence is often that less informed users end up losing their investments and not seeing any profits.
If we adopt a more positive perspective, Buterin may simply be expressing his personal preference and vision for cryptocurrency, which remains unaffected by the ongoing financialization activities of celebrities.
Certain stages are necessary in any economic development to lay the foundation for higher-level goals. While the financial gains are more tangible, some of Buterin’s points also highlight benefits for humanity, albeit in less obvious ways. Therefore, in the long term, the cofounders of Ethereum and Wintermute may find common ground.