Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted in native Language; Russia on Wednesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “is a crime against the Ukrainian and Russian people.” In the last day, the crypto and stock markets are down and BTC is down about 8%. Why? Well, I mean, because of the obvious.
Buterin Tweeted: “Very upset by Putin’s decision to abandon the possibility of a peaceful solution to the dispute with Ukraine and go to war instead.”
In a follow up tweet, Buterin clarified that the Ethereum organization is neutral on the war while him as individual is not.
After recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday declared that Russia would conduct a “special military operation” in Ukraine, a thinly veiled reference to a full invasion.
Earlier this month, Buterin appealed to Putin—in Russian—to de-escalate a conflict of Russia’s own making, tweeting, “An attack on Ukraine can only harm Russia, Ukraine and humanity.”
younger Buterin has attempted diplomacy. In 2017, he met with Putin in a bid to get Russia using the Ethereum network. Putin has pawed at cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. He recently overruled Russia’s central bank by suggesting that the country’s energy resources give it “certain competitive advantages” in Bitcoin mining. A 2019 Wired piece detailed how Russia could leverage Bitcoin mining in former Soviet states to make an “end run around US sanctions.”
But neither Putin nor Russia has ever fully embraced cryptocurrency, whose ethos tends to runs counter to authoritarianism. Distributed blockchains, run by thousands of people all over the world, are non-partisan and decentralized by design. Still, they are created by people with political perspectives.
Discover more from DiutoCoinNews
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
