Censorship has been a problem for the blockchain community for a while. Some are unsure of the Ethereum blockchain’s level of resistance to “The Merge” a few weeks out.
Does Ethereum resist censorship?
Lefteris Karapetsas, the creator of Rotki Solutions GmbH, a German business creating an open-source portfolio management tool, sent out the first tweet that set the whole thing in motion.
The German businessman intended to understand the views of the exchanges Kraken, Binance, and even Coinbase in the event that the regulators requested restriction. An informal poll with two options:
- A) Comply and censor at the protocol level
- B) Shut down the staking service and preserve network integrity
Eric Wall was able to advance the discussion on the legitimacy of censorship thanks to this opening query:
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Question for the Ethereum community. If a majority chooses A in this poll, will you:X) View censorship as an attack on Ethereum and burn their stake by social consensus?Y) Tolerate censorship?
Currently, censorship is seen as a threat to the Ethereum network by more than 60% of the community. Just 10% of people believe that censorship should be accepted. A rather tiny percentage, albeit one might question how this second response is phrased. Without leaving a remark, over one-third of respondents selected “View results.”
This concern was brought up by the fact that the five platforms mentioned in Lefteris Karapetsas’ tweet collectively own 66% of the Beacon Chain. Many tweeters claimed that the 5 platforms could adhere to regulator requirements and OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) laws. OFAC is an American financial control organization. creating doubts about Ethereum’s actual decentralization.
Vitalik Buterin condemns censorship in a statement!
Recently, the co-founder of Ethereum publicly endorsed Option X in the poll above in a tweet.
- “fwiw i voted X in your above poll”
He argued that the network should penalize the validators who came to comply with the censorship’s demands. The punishment has been determined to be the burning of their staked tokens.
Censorship is a difficult problem for cryptocurrency players.
When the West started to take action against Russia, this argument was already in full swing. Although some platforms, like Binance, at first resisted adhering to the dynamics and criteria for sanctions, the regulatory pressure soon became intolerable. Binance has to change, just like everyone else. This revelation was occasionally unwelcome to crypto purists since it went against the guiding notion of decentralization. The discussion has persisted among the crypto community for several weeks.
In a sense, the Apple company has been struggling with the same issues for a while. Even though the apple brand’s policy regarding the protection of its users’ data is quite clear, it occasionally faces backlash from the general public. Since Apple has made the security of its products an unbreakable principle. When it comes to accessing the data of terrorists or serial killers, a policy that presents moral dilemmas. No of the circumstance, Apple has consistently refused to allow access to this information.
After the Tornado Cash episode, a hot topic of discussion!
Regarding the news about Tornado Cash, this conversation on the blue bird social network is also quite meaningful. The US Treasury sanctioned the crypto player on August 8. The organization believes Tornado Cash would have been responsible for laundering $7 billion since 2019 and that the platform had not put in place the controls and mechanisms required to address the issue.
A few days later, the business made its closure known to the public and claimed that it “could not fight against the United States.” In response to these occurrences, Circle, which among other things creates the USDC stablecoin, placed all Ethereum addresses used by the Tornado Cash protocol to the blacklist. Aave’s execution of a Justin Sun-specified program.
The Coin Center organization is getting set to take legal action against OFAC on its own behalf. due to the fact that the organization would have gone beyond what was permitted by law. stating that his activity might be in violation of the US Constitution’s freedom of expression and legislation. The discussion about the genuine level of decentralization in the cryptocurrency world has polarized over the last few days. While some people think that protocols shouldn’t develop independently of regulatory decisions, others think that decentralization will be killed off if these principles are consistently followed.
