Ethereum Cofounder Calls Cryptocurrency a “Ticking Time-Bomb”
After reaching new highs in June, the infamously volatile Bitcoin tanked earlier this month. The popular cryptocurrency has since mostly recovered, but a veteran in the industry says Bitcoin—and all other cryptocurrency, for that matter—remains a “ticking time-bomb.”
Charles Hoskinson, who helped develop the ethereum blockchain, told Bloomberg that “people are blinded by fast and easy money.”
Hoskinson’s Ethereum, a rapidly emerging alternative to Bitcoin, skyrocketed from $8 earlier this year to nearly $400 last month, before plummeting alongside Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum has thus far failed to recover.
Hoskinson is not alone in his skepticism of the cryptocurrency market, which promises freedom from the financial sector but cannot find a stable footing on which to enter the mainstream.
“We are very bearish in the near term for a number of reasons,” Harry Yeh, a managing partner at digital currency dealer Binary Financial told Bloomberg. “We are definitely headed for some turbulent and volatile times in the short term.”
Earlier this week, hackers stole several million dollars worth of Ethereum from CoinDash, an exchange platform for such currencies.
“The moment the token sale went public, the CoinDash website was hacked and a malicious address replaced the CoinDash Token Sale address,” the company admitted. “More than 2,000 investors sent ETH to the malicious address.”
The move has indefinitely halted the company’s service.