'Heed these words of warning:' Ethereum founder threatens to leave if the crypto community doesn't grow up
Vitalik Buterin/Twitter
Ethereum's founder is fed up with the immaturity of the cryptocurrency community.
He threatened on Twitter on Wednesday that he would leave if folks in the space didn't get their act together.
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, thinks crypto is heading in the wrong direction.
Buterin, 23, on Wednesday lamented the immaturity of communities across the cryptocurrency market. He said folks in the space should understand the difference between enacting positive change for society and just moving a bunch of money around.
Buterin said that energy was being squandered on meme-ing about luxury cars and inappropriate jokes, and that if things didn't change he would leave the space altogether.
The market for digital coins has exploded this year, with bitcoin and ether — the cryptocurrency powered by the Ethereum blockchain — leading the way.
Ether is up more than 8,500% since the beginning of the year, and Ethereum has paved the way for hundreds of initial coin offerings, a cryptocurrency twist on initial public offerings that helps startups raise capital outside traditional financial services.
Autonomous Next, a fintech-analytics firm, estimates that over $4 billion has been raised via ICOs. In total, the market for digital coins has exploded from under $18 billion at the start of the year to a whopping $560 billion now, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
Still, Buterin has questioned whether such gains are grounded in reality. He tweeted this earlier this month, soon after the crypto market surpassed $500 billion for the first time:
He continued:
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