Original title: "V God interviewed by CNN: Cryptocurrency is in a bubble, Musk will not always have the ability to influence the market, Ethereum may eventually catch up and surpass Bitcoin in market value"
This article is from BitpushNews, written by: Matt Egan, translated by: Chen Zou
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, is honored by the currency circle as V God. In a recent interview with CNN Business, the 27-year-old Ethereum co-founder believes the crypto market is in a bubble. However, he stressed that it is "notoriously difficult to predict" when the bubble will burst. “The crypto craze may or may not be over in a few months. … Elon (Elon Musk) won’t have that kind of influence forever”.
Ethereum fell below $1,900 on Wednesday morning, a staggering drop of more than 40 percent from Tuesday night, according to data from Coinbase. Ethereum rallied to around $2,700 on Thursday morning, but remains a considerable gap from its May 11 record high of $4,384.
Vitalik Buterin, who is only 27 years old, has long been accustomed to the alternating cycles of these cryptocurrency bulls and bears. In his eyes, the encryption market is not just a money game.
Vitalik Buterin, who is only 27 years old, has long been accustomed to the alternating cycles of these cryptocurrency bulls and bears. In his eyes, the encryption market is not just a money game.
Cryptocurrency is no longer just a toy
“So far, we’ve had at least three periods of these big crypto bubbles, and a lot of times the bubbles eventually stop because something happens and then it suddenly becomes clear that the technology isn’t where it was supposed to be,” Buterin said.
Buterin laid out his vision for ethereum in a white paper in 2013, two years before ethereum officially launched. Today, it is the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, which is considered "digital gold," Ethereum is a blockchain-based platform for developers to build and operate applications. It's like the Android or iOS of cryptocurrency.
In late 2017, Buterin unleashed a tweetstorm questioning whether the cryptocurrency space was truly worthy of its market valuation, which at the time was just over $5 trillion. He pointed out that little was actually achieved, and the price of the cryptocurrency fell shortly thereafter.
Buterin says:
Buterin says:"It feels like cryptocurrency is ready for mainstream adoption, compared to four years ago when it was completely unprepared. Today's cryptocurrency is no longer just a toy. While I'm not sure, it's still possible that Ethereum will eventually catch up and surpass Bitcoin in market value. "
However, Ethereum, and cryptocurrencies in general, still have problems. First, they are still very volatile, especially for retail investors who are used to more modest moves in the stock market.
However, Ethereum, and cryptocurrencies in general, still have problems. First, they are still very volatile, especially for retail investors who are used to more modest moves in the stock market.
Also, some billionaires seem to be using cryptocurrencies as a plaything. Elon Musk's on-and-off love affair with coins has sent shockwaves through the field.
Musk tweeted on May 12 that Tesla would stop accepting bitcoin payments because of concerns about the negative impact of cryptocurrencies on the environment. (Because Bitcoin's complex mining process requires a lot of computer power and electricity) The sentiment in the crypto market shifted immediately. Nearly $365 billion in cryptocurrency market value evaporated that day, according to CNBC.
The Tesla billionaire has also repeatedly touted dogecoin, which was created to satirize the crypto market. Musk also mentioned Dogecoin again during his Saturday Night Live show.
Musk's tweets to influence the market are the first time in the cryptocurrency space in recent times. Buterin thinks it's reasonable to be a little crazy right now. But the market always improves eventually. Elon won't have that kind of clout forever.
The Tesla billionaire has also repeatedly touted dogecoin, which was created to satirize the crypto market. Musk also mentioned Dogecoin again during his Saturday Night Live show.
Buterin believes that Musk's fascination with Dogecoin is only out of interest and not malicious.
He said, "He (Musk) is a billionaire, he runs Tesla and SpaceX and all these things, but it doesn't change the fact that he's ultimately a human being, and humans treat dogs. It’s just a human instinct. I don’t think Elon has any malice in these things.”
V God Fury Slash SHIB
Another recent animal coin that has humans excited is Shiba Inu, a self-proclaimed “Dogecoin” killer meme coin.
Shiba collapsed by about a third in an instant after Buterin donated SHIB, then worth $1 billion, to India's Covid-19 relief fund. The sell-off highlighted some of the altcoin’s illiquidity issues. “The problem with these Dogecoins is that they have such a small market, that by selling Shiba Inu that would have been worth $1 billion, you might end up not getting even a few million dollars,” he said.
Buterin also recently announced plans to burn, or remove from circulation, 90% of his SHIB holdings, which are all derived from on-chain donations. Buterin said he didn't want to be a "power center." In the interview, he emphasized that he doesn't want people who create altcoins to send him coins for "marketing" purposes.
Buterin said, "First of all, I don't really know or understand these projects. So, I can't endorse them, and I see what seems like a few thousand altcoins in my wallet called Freecoin. I don't even know this What is it?"
Buterin exhorted those who want to use crypto tokens to do good, donate it directly to charity.
Hidden dangers of government supervision always exist
Part of the reason for the recent collapse of cryptocurrencies is concerns about domestic regulation. Financial institutions and payment companies should not engage in any cryptocurrency-related transactions or provide cryptocurrency-related services to customers, three regulators in China's financial and banking industries said on Tuesday.
In an interview with China News, Buterin acknowledged that regulation "has always been an issue," although fears of an outright ban have receded. "It seems harder and less realistic to do something like this. At the same time, the government does have a lot of power and can make it harder to participate in the cryptocurrency space." Even if the blockchain is decentralized, the government cannot fully take download them, but governments can block or restrict access.
It is important to listen to the opinions of regulators, so that we can try our best to solve possible problems. The risk of "regulation" makes the relationship between cryptocurrency and regulators "more confrontational".
The PoS revolution will drastically reduce gas costs
Billionaire Mark Cuban complained to The Defiant in February that ethereum's growth is being constrained by "ridiculous" transaction fees. V God said, "Transaction fees are indeed 'very high' now. Although the transaction demand is very high, the Ethereum blockchain can only process 20 to 50 transactions per second."
But V God is still confident. He firmly believes that transaction costs will drop, because the Ethereum team is undergoing large-scale technical transformation in order to allow Ethereum to scale up rapidly. Ethereum is moving away from blockchain technology’s original algorithm, Proof of Work, to a newer concept called Proof of Stack. In a nutshell, this upgrade means that participants in the Ethereum network will be properly rewarded for staying online and keeping the network up and running. This would eliminate the energy consumption race that Proof of Work entails.
environmental problems
Buterin said that moving to proof-of-stake would reduce ethereum’s energy usage by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000.
He said: "This will also effectively control the energy consumption of the Ethereum network from the energy consumption equivalent to a medium-sized country to the energy consumption level of a village."
In stark contrast to the improvement direction of Ethereum is Bitcoin, Buterin said that future concerns about the impact of Bitcoin on the environment may become a reality. "I definitely think the concerns are real," he said. "It's a real drain on resources. It's not the kind of problem that destroys the world, but it's definitely a huge downside." In addition to the electricity consumed by Bitcoin miners, there is also the hardware required to perform mining.
This is why V God has always emphasized that as Bitcoin develops and adapts to technological advancements, there will be more voices in the Bitcoin community, either to switch to proof of stake or to a hybrid model.
"If Bitcoin sticks to its original technology and doesn't make any changes, it will most likely be left behind forever," he said.
