Influential Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song has responded to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's claims on Twitter about the future of the network. Song is sceptical about the "innovation" promised by Vitalik and the team's grand plans, and insists that "execution is the hard part".
The Ethereum Foundation recently announced that it would be investing around $30 million into further improving the Ethereum eco-system, with most of this going towards the long-awaited 'Ethereum 2.0'. The next version of the ETH network is, amongst other things, intended to solve its current scalability problems. The implementation of a new Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol in place of the current PoW system should be a major part of this solution.
We've actually already had all the research breakthroughs we need for a full implementation of eth2. This has been the case for about a year now.
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) May 22, 2019
Technical expert and leading crypto investor Tuur Demeester responded to this announcement on Twitter with some degree of scepticisim, suggesting that no money would be enough to "buy a scientific breakthrough". According to Vitalik, no such breakthrough is needed, as the team's technical research for Ethereum 2.0 is already complete.
ETH, promising innovation for over 5 years. Funny how the innovation is always a few years away. Like many "ideas" people, Vitalik thinks that execution is just a matter of implementing what's been researched.
— Jimmy Song (송재준) (@jimmysong) May 22, 2019
Here's some news for you: execution is the hard part. https://t.co/9tPlsh8xfc
Song then claimed that the promise of innovation made by Vitalik was something that had been heard several times before, with the developments constantly deferred to sometime in the near future. He insisted that research breakthroughs being made is not enough, as the actual execution of ideas is more complicated than just implementing things that are discovered at the research phase.
Observers on Twitter agreed that Vitalik might be underestimating how hard it will be to put ideas into practice. Others expressed their support for the Ethereum team due to its efforts to change things, compared to Bitcoin and other projects. They also suggested that Song might be treating Vitalik and co. a little unfairly.
When btc scaling? been over 10 yrs...
— ManyWoolongs (@retrowhaleboy) May 22, 2019
i remember you being very skeptical of ETH in 2017 during the big rally you were so quiet back then. Now that BTC is outperforming you'd like to bash on ETH :0
— Bitbug (@Bitbug00) May 22, 2019