DEFIMARKETPEOPLEBITCOIN

Battle of Future Currencies! Ethereum Circulating Supply Criticized Again, Vitalik: Don't Make It Like a Religious Belief

share
Battle of Future Currencies! Ethereum Circulating Supply Criticized Again, Vitalik: Don

Over the past few days, the Twitter cryptocurrency community has been debating the actual circulating supply of Ethereum. It all started with a tweet from Bitcoin enthusiast Anthony Pompliano on the 8th, where he claimed that the uncertainty surrounding the supply of Ethereum is its fatal flaw. He believes that some people suggesting "ETH is money" are incorrect, sparking intense debate between the Bitcoin and Ethereum camps.

ETH is money?

Bitcoin enthusiast and co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital, Anthony Pompliano (known as Pomp) expressed on Twitter that he does not think Ethereum is terrible, but it should continue to develop based on its own characteristics instead of trying to replace "money."

He emphasized that he is not against Ethereum at all, as many companies are using the Ethereum platform in various forms, but discussing whether "ETH is money" is simply a waste of time.

Source: @APompliano

The Ethereum community, of course, disagrees with this perspective. Most people believe that Pomp has a comprehensive understanding of Bitcoin but lacks the same depth of understanding when it comes to Ethereum. They mentioned that Ether can be used as gas fees in settling a larger total value and higher total transaction fees in various DeFi use cases, all achieved in just five years, while Bitcoin, after ten years, has not made significant progress in payments.

Antonopoulos: You can't compare it this way

Pomp's comments have drawn widespread community attention, leading renowned Bitcoin advocate and author of "Mastering Bitcoin" and "Mastering Ethereum," Andreas Antonopoulos, to join the debate. He directly pointed out:

The "circulating supply of Ether" is a fallacy of thought. Understanding how Ethereum works would reveal that comparing the circulating supply to Bitcoin is fundamentally unreasonable. Discussing this implies a level of understanding of Bitcoin even below that of Bitcoin critics like Peter Schiff and doomsday doctor Nouriel Roubini.

Source: @aantonop

Differences in Analysis Approach

Antonopoulos mentioned the differences in various blockchain explorers, which may vary slightly due to data collection and analysis methods. In terms of Bitcoin hash rate, each mainstream blockchain explorer will show slight discrepancies.

Differences in Underlying Mechanisms

This includes differences between Bitcoin's UTXO model and Ethereum's account model, the different block times of the two, and the additional uncle block rewards in Ethereum. In Bitcoin, the winner takes all in mining, whoever gets the right to record transactions receives the block reward, while Ethereum's mining mechanism serves three purposes:

  • Faster block times (40 times faster than Bitcoin)
  • This allows miners with lower hash power to participate
  • Uncle blocks effectively reduce the occurrence of empty blocks in Ethereum mining, where transactions are not included

Antonopoulos emphasized that if all specific uncle block rewards are calculated, the total Ethereum supply can be accurately determined. However, this would require continuous real-time scanning of the current blockchain state, just like the variations in data collection and analysis methods among different blockchain explorers. He stated:

Some "experts" do not understand these slight differences and pride themselves on pointing out major flaws in Ethereum, which only demonstrates their lack of understanding of the two technologies and economics.

Vitalik: Don't worship money

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin echoed Antonopoulos' explanation, but he believes that the community should stay away from the controversy over the circulating supply of Ether. He expressed:

If nobody in the Ethereum community stepped up to create a calculator that accurately calculates the circulating supply, I would consider that the best response. It means that none of us care about whether "ETH is money," and nobody worships or believes in Ether as the future currency.

Nevertheless, Vitalik still seems to hope that Ethereum will eventually become a robust monetary system in the future. He pointed out that this may only be achievable after Ethereum 2.0 and the improvement proposal EIP-1559 are implemented, which may take several years, awaiting a perfected economic system post 2.0.