Vitalik Buterin is facing criticism from Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, who argues that Ethereum has to choose between capitalism and socialism. The CEO shared his thoughts after there has been some debate about the actual value of celebrity meme coins. Meanwhile, Binance CEO Richard Teng recently shared his own thoughts about the industry's growth as Binance hit 200 million users. Interestingly, io.net CEO Ahmad Shadid decided to step down just days before the company's token launch, with Tory Green taking over as the new CEO.
Vitalik Buterin Under Fire
Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of digital assets market maker Wintermute, recently stated that Ethereum's leaders have to choose between supporting a capitalist or socialist economic system, but cannot support both. In a post on X, Gaevoy stated, "You are either building capitalism or planned socialism. I’m sorry, you really can’t have both."
His comments came after some comments from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Uniswap founder Hayden Adams about the rise of celebrity meme coins. Gaevoy argued that the Ethereum community faces a contradiction by striving to create socially positive products while addressing maximum extractable value (MEV) in blockchain transactions.
Gaevoy also criticized Buterin, Adams, and others for trying to "solve capitalism" by suggesting that blockchain products are only respected if they have socially worthy ends, like healthcare, open-source software, or art. He argued that blockchain technology inherently supports purely capitalist, incentive-based systems.
Buterin is not very happy with the current wave of celebrity meme coins as he believes they do not contribute anything "worthy" to society. He believes financialization is justified only if it serves a valuable societal purpose, like improving healthcare or supporting creativity.
Adams, while having no issues with celebrity meme coins, criticized rapper Iggy Azalea for her recent dismissive comments about Buterin and suggested that profits from such ventures could be used for social causes.
CEO Richard Teng’s Crypto Commentary
Other CEOs also had a lot to say recently about the crypto industry. Binance CEO Richard Teng recently stated that the cryptocurrency industry has moved beyond the era of “early adopters” and entered the epoch of the “early majority.” This statement was made after Binance’s Jun. 8 announcement that it reached 200 million registered users worldwide, making it the largest cryptocurrency exchange by far.
Teng is extremely grateful about reaching the milestone, and attributed it to the trust that the crypto community placed in Binance.
Teng believes that Binance’s growth, with its user base doubling from 100 million to 200 million in just 26 months, reflects the broader growth and maturity of the crypto sector. He is convinced that this shift from early adopters to the early majority shows a growing global acceptance of cryptocurrency and its potential.
Despite this success, Binance is not slowing down. The company now plans to onboard one billion users, a goal that will certainly require a lot of effort, including basically doubling the number of current crypto owners worldwide. This ambitious target will also require some political support from global regulators, especially in the U.S., where around 50 million crypto holders are in regulatory limbo as the SEC and other agencies determine the country’s legal stance on a number of crypto issues.
The upcoming U.S. presidential election could also play a huge role in shaping the future regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency.
Crypto Politics
Crypto’s big role in politics is evident in the fact that Former United States President Donald Trump is intensifying his cryptocurrency advocacy as part of his 2024 presidential campaign. In fact, Trump now claims that his goal is to become the “crypto president,” according to a recent Reuters report.
At a fundraising event in San Francisco that was hosted by Craft Ventures’ general partner David Sacks and tech billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya, Trump reportedly declared, “he would be the crypto president.” The event even raised $12 million to support his efforts before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
Trump now regularly makes sure to remind the crypto community of his support for crypto and his plans to advance the industry. This is in stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s approach of harsh regulations, which the U.S. crypto industry refers to as regulation by enforcement.
Trump’s latest declaration comes only a week after President Joe Biden faced backlash from the crypto industry for vetoing a resolution that would have overruled the SEC's Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121. The controversial guidelines require institutions that custody crypto assets to record crypto holdings as liabilities on their balance sheets.
Trump has recently made several public statements supporting the crypto industry. On May 26, he reiterated the U.S. must not settle for anything less than first place in the crypto industry. “Our country must be the leader in the field, there is no second place.”
Trump also declared in a May 25 post on Truth Social, “I am very positive and open-minded to cryptocurrency companies, and all things related to this new and burgeoning industry.”
io.net CEO Steps Down
Meanwhile, another crypto CEO recently made headlines. Solana-based decentralized infrastructure provider io.net replaced its CEO just two days before the project’s token launch. Ahmad Shadid, one of the founders, left "effective immediately" and was replaced by fellow founder and former chief operating officer Tory Green.
Shadid pointed towards allegations about his past as the reason for stepping down. He also stated it was to allow io.net to move forward without any distraction. Critics accused Shadid of misleading the community about the number of GPU chips io.net offers. Additionally, the network previously suffered a GPU metadata attack on Apr. 28, which ended up reducing active GPU connections from 600,000 to 10,000.
The io.net token, IO, is set to launch on Binance’s Launchpool on Jun. 11. Initially, 95,000,000 IO tokens will be released, with a maximum supply of 800,000,000 IO tokens.
There were some concerns raised that Shadid might "dump" his IO coins at launch and disappear, but he responded that his tokens are subject to a 4-year lockup and cannot be sold until June of 2025. He also pledged to contribute one million IO tokens to the firm’s Internet of GPUs Foundation to support ecosystem growth.
Shadid did not clarify if he would stay connected to io.net. Interestingly, additional leadership changes will be announced soon, according to new CEO Tory Green.
According to Green, io.net is laser focused on its mission to build the world’s largest decentralized AI compute network and on acquiring and retaining suppliers and onboarding new customers. Io.net has already onboarded about 20,000 cluster-ready GPUs and serves AI inference and model training workloads for several AI-focused companies.
