Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin spoke out against President Nayib Bukele’s compulsory bitcoin usage for merchants and businesses, saying it was against cryptocurrency’s “ideals of freedom.”
- Buterin commented in response to a Reddit article titled “Unpopular opinion: El Salvador President Mr. Nayab (Nayib) Bukele should not be praised by Crypto community.”
- The Ethereum co-founder did not fail to call out “Bitcoin Maximalists,” whom he believed praised the El Salvadoran President’s move without criticism.
- “Shame on everyone (ok, fine, I’ll call out the main people responsible: shame on Bitcoin maximalists) who are uncritically praising him.”
- Buterin further said Bitcoin maximalists were easy to please if a person in a position of authority did something or spoke in favor of BTC.
- President Nayib Bukele has been facing criticism from opponents and the international community ever since El Salvador’s legislators voted in favor of making the cryptocurrency a legal tender earlier this year.
- The so-called Bitcoin Law was implemented back in September, with the government also giving access to El Salvadorans to download the Chivo wallet app.
- But Buterin called the mass adoption of bitcoin “reckless,” saying:
“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.”
- However, President Bukele stated earlier that bitcoin adoption was optional for citizens in El Salvador.