Bloomberg’s senior exchange-traded fund (ETF) analyst, Eric Balchunas, stirred up controversy within the Ethereum community after sharing what many considered “misinformation” in a now-deleted post on X.
On October 7, Balchunas posted an excerpt from Benjamin Hart’s book Bitcoin: Beginner’s Guide, along with a comment stating that Ether “just isn’t the same or as secure” as Bitcoin, in response to a crypto book recommendation request from Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store.
The excerpt from Hart’s book claimed that the U.S. government could “shut down Ethereum” by instructing Amazon Web Services (AWS) to turn off its cloud services.
However, data from Ethernodes shows that only 28.4% of Ethereum nodes use AWS for hosting, which would not be enough to take the entire network offline.
The book also suggested that a rogue state or terrorist organization could kidnap Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and force him to hand over “all the Ether they want.”
This post received strong backlash, with Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano accusing Balchunas of spreading “absolute blatant misinformation and pretty much complete propaganda.”
Sassano criticized Balchunas further, stating, “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).”
Consensys product manager Jimmy Ragosa also weighed in, calling the excerpt “the most propaganda-ridden paragraph ever.”
Balchunas’ fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart humorously responded to the situation, predicting that the replies to the post would be “amazing.”
Balchunas, in turn, acknowledged the uproar but indicated he didn’t have time to address the reactions, stating, “Lol I don’t have time today, will just leave up Bitcoin sections.”
Meanwhile, Ethereum developers continue to focus on solo staking and lowering hardware requirements to further decentralize the blockchain.