Buterin Hits Out At Bitcoin Community’s Lack of Civility in Scaling Discussion

As accusations continue to fly between different sides of the Bitcoin scaling debate, Vitalik Buterin has gone on record to express his dislike of the phenomenon.

One of the worst aspects of crypto culture is the idea that because math and code are supposedly apolitical, we do not have to be polite. — Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 10, 2017

The rhetoric between supporters of Bitcoin Unlimited and Bitcoin Core, in particular, has stepped up over the last week, with Twitter the main stage for increasingly unchecked criticism.

Accusations flying

At the center of the Twitter storm is Bitmain Co-Founder Jihan Wu. A staunch Bitcoin Unlimited supporter, Wu last week faced fresh accusations he had exploited a Bitcoin vulnerability to save costs using his mining hardware.

Both Wu and Bitmain formally denied the claims, the former stating “someone made a probability math wrong [sic].”

Running in tandem with the Bitmain argument is a private spat between Wu and former BTCC COO Samson Mow over several topics. Wu labeled Mow a “liar” on at least two occasions, while Mow most recently stated Wu had “overplayed his hand and is losing on multiple fronts.”

Jihan has overplayed his hand and is losing on multiple fronts. A #UASF #SegWit activation on $LTC looks increasingly likely. — Samson Mow (@Excellion) April 9, 2017

The last comment was in relation to scaling’s latest scandal, this time involving Litecoin’s implementation of Segregated Witness (SegWit).

Charlie Lee, Litecoin’s creator, retweeted accusations from user-activated soft fork supporter shaolinfry on Monday that Wu was behind a deliberate attempt by miners to block the altcoin from activating SegWit.