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Early Bitcoin (BTC) investor and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponent Roger Ver stated that Ethereum, not Bitcoin, will be responsible for attracting the bulk of new users to the cryptocurrency.
On the May 31 episode of the Show Me The Crypto podcast, Ver, who has been dubbed “Bitcoin Jesus” for his early defense of Bitcoin, said that despite Ethereum’s scaling issues and other layer one “clones” that have come his way, The Ethereum ecosystem is still in action:
“Even though Ethereum does not have the largest market capitalization compared to Bitcoin, I think Ethereum is the leader in terms of global adoption.”
Ver praised the emergence of blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and layer 2 scaling solutions such as Polygon (MATIC), which can help spread some of the load off the main chain.
Ver provides an account of the “civil war” that took place in the early days of Bitcoin between Etheruem co-founder Vitalik Buterin and the developers of Bitcoin’s core.
Ver noted that the controversy over the use of smart contracts and the rejection of the idea of using the blockchain solely as a currency or store of value ultimately led Buterin to develop Ethereum:
“All this would have been built on the basis of Bitcoin, if not for the outbreak of civil war. These Bitcoin core developers hate Vitalik and they basically kicked him out of the project to go and create Ethereum and for that he was given more power.”
Ver also spoke about the recent Ledger debate, calling the controversial Recover service “disappointing.” He said that while people can have custodian accounts and choose to recover their keys if they want to, the ethos of cryptocurrency is centered around full control of your assets at all times.
Related: Hybrid Rollups: The Silver Bullet for Scalability and Security on Ethereum
In January, Ver was sued by the trading arm of cryptocurrency lending company Genesis for failing to pay about $20.8 million in unsettled cryptocurrency options.
Ver stated in a January Reddit post that he had “enough funds” to pay the remaining amount, and argued that since Genesis is no longer solvent, he is not legally required to honor his end of the deal.
On the topic of #Genesis: https://t.co/2a0fYu5P3E pic.twitter.com/a6tA0HISMo
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) January 25, 2023
Ver made headlines last year for allegations of debt default. CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb stated that Ver owed the firm $47 million in coin (USDC) and was bound by a written contract. On June 28, Ver denied these claims without directly mentioning the company.