Bitcoin Maximalist Michael Saylor Makes the Case Against Ethereum

ISTANBUL – Bitcoin maximalist Michael Saylor has questioned the soundness of Ethereum, both in terms of its technical development and its ethics.

Saylor, the founder and CEO of business-intelligence software firm MicroStrategy (MSTR), spoke remotely for close to an hour at Blockchain Economy Istanbul Wednesday, elaborating on the question of what he thought of Ethereum.

Saylor, whose MicroStrategy holds a stash of 129,218 bitcoin (BTC) worth about $2.8 billion at current prices, noted that he was speaking as an institutional investor and in that regard, one would "have to wait until the protocol is complete." He pointed out that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in a speech last week that Ethereum was 40% done and had laid out a roadmap of three to four years, which means the "protocol doesn’t look like it's going to be completed or stable for another 36 months."

Saylor also questioned the lack of time-tested information about Ethereum, saying it led to concerns about the protocol's technical reliability and security.

"'Technically sound' means I need to see the protocol function for that thing after about five to 10 years. So we don’t know that, either. Right? Because if you are hard forking and changing it, every time you do a big upgrade, you introduce new attack surfaces" he said.

In addition, Saylor cast doubt on the ethical soundness of Ethereum.

"'Ethically sound' means I need to know that nobody could change [the protocol], which includes Vitalik. I need to know that no one at the Ethereum foundation, no individual can change the protocol because if they could change the protocol, it makes it a security and if it makes it a security, then it’s not going to become global money," Saylor said.

Saylor has recently suggested that MicroStrategy will never sell its bitcoin.

Read More: Jefferies Downgrades MicroStrategy to 'Underperform;' Shares Slump