The Ethereum community has seen a divide recently on the question of how to react to the threats of protocol-level transaction censorship due to the United States government sanctions that mention the use of addresses linked to Tornado Cash. It is one of the latest Ethereum news in the global respect.
Ethereum Community’s Divide In A Nutshell
In the past week, several Ethereum community members proposed that social slashing could be used for reacting against the move and that a user-activated soft fork (UASF) could be used to initiate public response on the matter. They believe that protocol-level transaction censorship is a ‘trap’ for the community and must be avoided at all costs. They even said that the move would do almost no good and would instead harm the ETH community to an extent.
The fiery argument in the community started after Ethermine, an Ethereum miner, decided not to process any ETH transactions using the U.S. sanctioned Tornado, an Ethereum-based privacy tool. This move led the entire community to think about the consequences if even other centralized validators follow the same path.
A part of the Ethereum community is even thrashing the proposed reaction of social slashing as they do not think it is effective enough. They mentioned that this could not solve the problem of censorship being enabled on the ETH blockchain but instead increase problems. This is because a part of the centralized validators may choose to work with the censorship-less chain and the other might only operate on the OFAC-compliant chain, which would completely hamper their motive of a chain devoid of censorship.
2/21) "Social slashing" represents a potential trap
— Justin Bons (@Justin_Bons) August 22, 2022
In that it might open the door to the censorship it intends to combat
Prematurely sacrificing one principle for another
As slashing exchanges will deprive innocent users of their deposits!
Violating their property rights!
Justin Bons, the founder of Cyber Capital, says that the act of social slashing is one of the greatest threats from within the ETH community. In a tweet he mentioned that:
“We are now at a critical crossroads for Ethereum with OFAC regulation looming over ETH; threatening censorship. However, the greatest threat comes from within, discussions of “social slashing,” multiple forks & unclear governance heralds the potential for disaster in ETH. “Social slashing” represents a potential trap.”
Anthony Sassano, the one who established the Ethereum podcast ‘The Daily Gwei’, commented on the matter (in the same line) saying:
“Collateral damage is inevitable with social slashing – but at some point, it’s worth it to protect Ethereum’s credible neutrality and censorship-resistance properties.”
The Ethereum community’s split is something that no one ETH enthusiasts would ever want. This latest Ethereum news has surely blown everyone’s mind and therefore, further updates on the matter have been awaited. Meanwhile, let’s have a look at the ETH crypto’s performance amid such disparities in its supporters.
Ethereum Price Today
Surprisingly, the ETH crypto was in the ‘green’ today amid the aforementioned controversy. In addition, it was one of the most notable gains after the recent bearish sessions as it lost about 15% in the last seven days. The ETH price was up by 3.64% and it traded at $1,612.70 at the time of writing on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. The market cap of the crypto stood at $196.89, up by 3.68%. In addition, the 24-hour trade volume gained slightly by 4.47% to $17.4 billion. The Ethereum price prediction data by Changelly shows that the crypto has the potential to surge up to $7,336.62 (minimum) by 2025 while the maximum target is placed at $8,984.84.
