Monero’s lead maintainer Riccardo Spagni recently levied some pointed criticisms of Ethereum on Twitter while responding to a tweet from Golem’s Chief Strategy & Security officer Joanna Rutkowska. Spagni, who writes under the Twitter handle “fluffypony,” characterized Ethereum as an
“Idiotic, unscalable idea that has neither delivered on its “world computer” promise, nor created any useful decentralized apps with any real use, nor created a robust and scalable decentralized system.”
He noted that ConsenSys, one of Ethereum’s development companies, has over 1,000 employees, and more than all but two of the ETH networks’ decentralized applications.
Build On “Stuff That Is Proven”
A bit further down the Twitter thread, Spagni argued the best way to craft a “secure decentralized system” is to build on top of “stuff that is proven, and demonstrably robust.” He believes something like the Lightning Network on top of bitcoin would fit the bill, but “Ethereum does not.”
Spagni’s comments came in response to a Twitter thread by Rutkowska, who mused about figuring “the essential _features_ of the The Ethereum (computer) vs. mere _implementation_ “details.”
Just to make it clear: I'm not proposing to replace Ethereum with @elonmusk's satellite(s) — I'm trying to build a thought experiment to help me grasp the essence of Ethereum and its roadmap… https://t.co/jtDWRqPCDF
— Joanna Rutkowska (@rootkovska) November 3, 2018
Rutkowska asked on the microblogging platform if launching a “traditional server into Earth’s orbit” would be ““reasonably” as good a solution as Ethereum.”
She was clear to explain her comments should not be seen as a proposal to replace Ethereum with satellites from Elon Musk, but characterized her remarks as more of a thought experiment on the roadmap and essence of Ethereum.
Smart Contracts Are “Quite Broken”
Spagni chimed in on a variety of other topics in the same Twitter thread. He believes smart contracts are “quite broken…mostly due to Ethereum encouraging JavaScript developers to write smart contracts.”
Spagni also said systems based on platforms need to start by solving actual needs. He pointed out how dApps are mostly “all solutions in search of a problem,” and said he is yet to see one who has defined different markets.
Spagni, who lives in South Africa, forked Monero’s codebase with other developers in order to keep the technology from dying, even though “none of us really wanted an altcoin of our own.”
