In a remarkable turn of events, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has declared support for Solana, a prominent rival in the blockchain space, despite an intensifying regulatory crackdown led by American regulators. Buterin made his comments during a Twitter conversation in which he openly stated his worry about the U.S. Securities and Trade Commission’s (SEC) close examination of blockchain projects.
Buterin warned against celebrating Ethereum’s victory if it came about as a result of seeing competitors kicked off exchanges. He said of the other blockchain projects, “They don’t deserve it, and if Ethereum finally ends up’successing’ via all competing blockchains being banned from exchanges, that’s not an honorable way to win, and ultimately probably isn’t even a victory.”
Campaign for Crypto by the SEC
The U.S. Securities and Trade Commission’s crackdown on the crypto market has sent shockwaves across the industry like a rainstorm on a clear day. The government has purportedly fined prominent exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken for advertising unregistered securities. Solana’s SOL and a variety of other cryptocurrencies find themselves classified as unregistered securities in the midst of this tempest.
This story is made more interesting by the rivalry between Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, and Solana, a project intended to speed up transactions in the non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors.
Buterin’s unexpected display of sympathy for a rival highlights an alluring dynamic within the blockchain community—a shared struggle against regulatory pressures—and suggests that the crypto community may be more united than divided in its effort to successfully negotiate the murky waters of international law.
