In an interesting Twitter conversation, the Coinbase CEO – Brian Armstrong – suggested that he’d rather stop staking than censor Ethereum’s network. Armstrong’s comment came amidst ongoing heated debates regarding Ethereum’s power to stay censorship-resistant as it transitions to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain.
Ethereum developer, Lefteris Karapetsas, asked an interesting question to Coinbase, Kraken, and some other centralized exchanges. He asked them what they’d do if the U.S. government ordered them to either comply with the sanctions or block all transactions of blacklisted Ethereum addresses.
Here’s exactly what he tweeted:
“If regulators ask you to censor at the #ethereum protocol level with your validators will you:
A) Comply and censor at the protocol level
B) Shut down the staking service and preserve network integrity,”
This tweet soon became a hot topic on Twitter and in the crypto community.
To this, the Coinbase CEO replied that he will prioritize the network’s integrity and will not choose to censor Ethereum’s transactions.
Here’s what he tweeted:
“It’s a hypothetical we hopefully won’t actually face. But if we did we’d go with B I think. Got to focus on the bigger picture. There may be some better option (C) or a legal challenge as well that could help reach a better outcome.”
Brian Armstrong’s comment came as a huge relief to the Ethereum community who had been worried over the potential censorship resistance following its “merge” and upgrade to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain.
Amidst this raging debate, the chief investment officer at Arcane Assets – Eric Wall – says that the crypto community must come together. They need to force all centralized exchanges to quit staking before it’s too late!
