El Salvador officially adopted Bitcoin in September. However, the move by El Salvador has garnered some criticism from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. El Salvador president Nayib Bukele has reportedly forced companies to accept Bitcoin after officially adopting the cryptocurrency as legal tender. This move has been criticised by Buterin as it seems to be driven by Bitcoin maximalist tendencies. Buterin expressed his anger in a Reddit discussion, where he shared his comment in response to a post by another user.
Buterin wrote, “Making it mandatory for businesses to accept a specific cryptocurrency is contrary to the ideals of freedom that are supposed to be so important to the crypto space.”
The user had complained about President Bukele’s dictatorial political activities. The original post read, “The idea behind the creation of cryptocurrency, decentralised finance was to be not controlled by any single person, a single group or entity. But what Mr Bukele is doing in real-life politics is exactly opposite the idea of power to the people.” The user called his take an “unpopular opinion.”
Buterin showed his support, “Nothing unpopular about this opinion.” He further added, “Additionally, this tactic of pushing BTC to millions of people in El Salvador at the same time with almost no attempt at prior education is reckless, and risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed.”
He also criticised Bitcoin maximalists for their support of El Salvador’s partiality towards the largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Buterin wrote, “Shame on everyone (ok, fine, I’ll call out the main people responsible: shame on Bitcoin maximalists) who are uncritically praising him (Bukele).”
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency with regard to market cap. Usually, Buterin comes out in support of developments in the cryptocurrency network and industry. He is seldom heard commenting on political issues. However, he made an exception this time by commenting on the Reddit user’s note that is categorised under politics on the social media platform.
Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.