Vitalik Buterin said Binance DEX more centralized than Ethereum, Changpeng Zhao hits back

By Polkadot News 12/24/19 11:06 PM

In a recent tweet, Ethereum co-founder Buterin caused a cyberwar over decentralization in the crypto community, specifically Binance DEX as well as Ethereum itself. He believed Binance’s decentralized exchange should be a target for criticism rather than Ethereum.

The binance DEX claims to be a DEX right in the name, but it's hardly decentralized. Seems like a way better target than ethereum, which merely has a few governance values that some BTC people don't like.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 21, 2019

Buterin protests after Ethereum centralization was criticized

The argument started after Buterin retweeted a BTSE promotional video on Dec. 21. Even though the video totally has no question such as Ethereum’s decentralization, the Ethereum co-founder has stimulated the crypto community into arguments.

He said that it is silly to criticize Ethereum for being centralized and enabling ICOs, and then coming back and promoting a centralized token on top of an allowance consortium chain that has been doing an ICO.

Vitalik has also mentioned the Magical Crypto Friends, who did the promotional video for the BTSE, leading to BTSE’s global marketing director Lina Seiche had to make a statement. She said Magical Crypto Friends criticized Ethereum for being centralized and enabling ICOs could not be further from the truth. Instead, the real issue here is Ethereum is claimed as decentralized when the truth is not because the liquid was never advertised as decentralized.

If that was the core of their criticism, you’d see them talking about Binance the same way. I think the real criticism lies in claiming Ethereum is decentralized when it clearly isn’t. Liquid was never advertised as decentralized.

— Lina Seiche (@LinaSeiche) December 21, 2019

Seiche also consolidated her statement by adding Ethereum’s criticism came from false promotion and the misleading of those building on and investing in Ethereum. She highlighted that the Liquid Network, a united sidechain of the Bitcoin blockchain used by BTSE, has never been advertised as decentralized.

Vitalik turned his target to Binance DEX

Binance, after being mentioned by Seiche, Buterin turned his target to Binance DEX, a decentralized exchange whose testnet was launched in early 2019. According to Vitalik, Binance claims to be a DEX, but “it’s hardly decentralized.”

He continued that Binance supposes to be a target rather than Ethereum, which simply has a few governance values that some BTC people do not like.

Being pointed out as a comparison to crypto projects that are not truly decentralized, Binance DEX was characterized as not really decentralized in the crypto community before. Whale Panda used to post a troll tweet in February 2019.

The Binance "DEX" is as much a DEX as JPM coin is a cryptocurrency. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) February 20, 2019

The story of decentralization in crypto

Vitalik Buterin is known for his positive attitude on decentralization as well as discrimination for centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. In 2018, he argued that everyone should build a “better” decentralized platforms, while centralized crypto exchanges are poised to “burn in hell.”

Interestingly, the conversation got the attention of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), noting that there is no absolute decentralization, and projects with core teams still have centralization. He responded on Twitter that the discussion between Vitalik and Seiche is a “kiddie war”.

Poor redirection attempt. Focus guys, will let you guys @VitalikButerin @LinaSeiche debate it.

While we focus on #buidling.

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 23, 2019

Following CZ’s response, Pixelmatic’s CEO Samson Mow remarked that the conversation is not about Binance. Rather, Seiche pointed out “why Vitalik ignored the reason why the Bitcoin community attacked Ethereum.”

In addition, the Indian CEO of WazirX exchange, Nischal Shetty also responded to a user on Twitter who challenged the decentralized narrative by the statement, “why can’t anyone be a validator? Where is the source code of the Binance chain?” Shetty answered decentralization is a work in progress but only made the argument stronger. The twitter account further questioned but remained unaddressed by the officials of Binance.