Bloomberg ETF Guru Eric Balchunas Slammed For ''Blatant Misinformation'' In Controversial Ethereum Post

Bloomberg ETF Guru Eric Balchunas Slammed For ”Blatant Misinformation” In Controversial Ethereum Post

Updated: 08 October 2024

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Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas faced a backlash on social media after sharing a now-deleted post criticizing Ethereum security, with one prominent voice accusing him of spreading misinformation.

The controversy stemmed from an excerpt from the book, ”Bitcoin: Beginner’s Guide,” that Balchunas shared. It claims that Ethereum is less secure than Bitcoin and says the network could be shut down by the US government by telling Amazon Web Services (AWS), which currently hosts 28.4% of the network’s nodes, to turn off its cloud services.

Ethereum supporters were quick to condemn the post, and Balchunas’s tweet was deleted.

“For those wondering, this is the tweet Eric deleted – absolute blatant misinformation and pretty much complete propaganda,” said independent Etherum Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano in a post on X. “You should be utterly ashamed of yourself for even sharing this (and you only deleted it because you didn’t want to deal with people calling you out.”

Crypto Community Lambasts Eric Balchunas For “Propaganda”

Bloomberg colleague James Seyffart commented under Balchunas’ post, and jokingly warned him of the comments that it will attract.

“These replies are about to be amazing hahaha,” Seyffart said. Balchunas replied, “Lol I don’t have time today, will just leave up Bitcoin sections.”

Boomers will read "Don't Trust, Verify" in a book, nod in agreement, then turn to the next page and share the most propaganda-ridden paragraph ever without asking themselves any question about the veracity of claims made towards competition.@EricBalchunas. https://t.co/MXQDiSoZb0

— Jrag.eth (@JimmyRagosa) October 7, 2024

Consensys product manager Jimmy Ragosa also criticized Balchunas for the tweet, and said it is “the most propaganda-ridden paragraph” ever shared online.

The book also says that a rogue government or terrrorist organization could kidnap Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and force him into handing over ”all the Ether they want.”

Ethereum’s Push To Become More Decentralized

Ethereum developers responded to Balchunas’ tweet by highlighting upcoming updates that are in the works to make the Ethereum blockchain more decentralized.

Among these updates is the potential reduction in the amount of ETH required to become a validator on the network. Developers are also pushing to lower the hardware requirements for validators. This makes it easier to solo stake and subsequently allow more people to become validators on the network.

In addition to the network upgrades, Ethereum’s layer-2 ecosystem has been booming. Many of these side chains have taken over the bulk of the computational workload that had slowed down the legacy layer-1 mainframe. This has essentially reduced the reliance on the Ethereum blockchain for transaction processing.