Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin met face to face with renown anti-cryptocurrency figure Nouriel Roubini at this year’s Deconomy blockchain event which was held in Seoul, South Korea.
The two got a chance to go at each other during the Deconomy blockchain event. Buterin spoke about the advantages that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have to offer. Roubini, on the other hand, attacked cryptocurrencies claiming that they are inefficient. He claims that cryptocurrency transactions are actually more expensive than fiat currency transactions. Roubini also bashed cryptocurrency and blockchain technology for their disadvantages such as cyber attacks, association with fraud and fake trading volumes reported by crypto exchanges.
Roubini, a New York University professor is well-known in the cryptocurrency community because of his negative opinions about cryptocurrencies. He has previously criticized Bitcoin and altcoins and previously earned himself the nickname ‘Dr. Doom’ for predicting the 2008 financial crisis. Having him and Buterin pitted against each other during the Seoul event provided the audience with a balanced view of the crypto market.
Roubini tried to discredit cryptocurrencies as usual
The two titans debated through a panel talk called Fundamental Value of Cryptocurrency and its sustainability,’ whose moderator was Antony Lewis. Some of the topics discussed during the debate include censorship resistance, scalability, and centralization. Vitalik talked about cryptocurrency and how censorship resistance can help more people gain access to financial services. He also claimed that it can also lead to more use cases with DApps as a good example. Meanwhile, Roubini rubbished the Ethereum co-founder’s anti-censorship remarks as a mere joke.
The NYU professor stated in his counter-argument that anti-censorship will remain a myth because governments have the capacity to rule against crypto-systems. He believes that the level of crypto-resistance will only be as much as the government allows. Roubini also argued that censorship resistance and anonymity will not work because many regulators have implemented KYC norms.
The professor also stated that governments will remain opposed to cryptocurrencies because they help finance felonies such as terrorism, human trafficking, and tax evasion. Buterin’s response was that compliant private finance is not impossible. His argument for efficiency was that solutions such as Ethereum’s sharding make crypto transactions and crypto mining highly efficient. The debate between Buterin and Roubini has been described as one of the most thrilling panel discussions of 2019.
