Paxful to delist Ethereum following push for integrity post-FTX

Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful, announced plans to remove Ethereum from the platform and said that the “revenue is nice but integrity trumps all.”

The comment came in response to an assessment from Jeremy Garcia, the CEO of Bitcoin education site Satoshi’s Journal, who blasted Ethereum as “poorly designed” and uncompliant with the “1st principles” of cryptocurrency.

Lithium Ventures chief product officer Tom Littler explained first principles as criteria used to “help you differentiate the wheat from the chaff.” In brief, these are decentralization or a new system of ownership, incentives to encourage positive social behavior, and no middlemen.

Garcia further criticized the project’s complexity, saying, “ETH will fail” due to this complexity and the potential changeability it brings at the fundamental level.

As an engineer, I understand that ETH is a very poorly designed protocol that does not follow 1st principles. ETH will fail because it has too many variables. ETH is a foundation of sand. #Bitcoin is a foundation of granite. Watch @jimmysong explain here https://t.co/0OoXQjdFHU

— Jeremy Garcia (@jerimican5445) December 12, 2022

Bitcoin maxi movement ramps up

Altcoins have come under fire following the collapse of FTX.

FTX bankruptcy filings have revealed a company run on poor corporate controls and capitalized by “air tokens.”

As MicroStrategy Chair Michael Saylor put it, the FTT token was a grift to extract “real stuff” in dollars and Bitcoin. All the while, it was passing itself off as a viable, more environmentally friendly version of BTC.

As the scale of corruption and dodgy dealings came to light, not forgetting the false narratives surrounding former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, trust in cryptocurrencies and organizations that operate in the space has evaporated.

Bitcoiners have pointed out that the shenanigans perpetrated by FTX, and others, had nothing to do with BTC. Many are taking this opportunity to promote the idea of Bitcoin-only from now on.

Ethereum in the firing line

During Africa Bitcoin Conference, which ran between Dec. 5 -7, Youssef pointed out that Paxful’s business model is worlds apart from FTX. The platform currently offers trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, and USDT, and “no hanky panky,” said Youssef.

“[Paxful has] no front-running, there’s no back-running, there’s no margin trading, there’s no leverage, there’s no hanky panky or dodginess happening. This is real trade between people.”

When asked about Paxful’s ETH volume, Youssef disclosed the amount is “quite small,” but it was initially added due to user demand. However, in light of recent developments, the firm has “a bigger responsibility” to drop ETH.

Meanwhile, further rumblings of questionable Ethereum practices have emerged as DeFi Pulse co-founder Scott Lewis tweeted about potential Uniswap favoritism through governance rule changes.

Ethereum governance is considering a rule change to give the next version of one of its biggest (and most socially connected) protocols a huge gas discount, but with no good disclosures, we dont know how big the uniswap v4 discount will be or how big a head start is being gifted.

— scott🍈 (@scott_lew_is) December 11, 2022

The issue has since blown up, with Lewis calling out the “powerful insider problem,” which forces people not to not speak out.