Key takeaways:
- Paxful removed Ethereum trading features on Thursday
- The decision was made due to Ethereum’s switch to Proof-of-Stake and a high degree of centralization
- Paxful has over 9 million users and has been selected as one of the 100 most influential companies of 2022 by TIME
Paxful CEO says the switch to Proof-of-Stake “rendered ETH essentially a digital form of fiat”
On Wednesday, Paxful CEO Ray Youssef announced that the Paxful peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace would be removing Ethereum (ETH) from the platform on December 22nd.
Youssef said that the decision to remove ETH was made by him personally. The reasons for the surprising decision have been multi-faceted, according to a Twitter post made by the CEO earlier in the week.
For starters, Youssef argues that Ethereum’s switch to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm in September rendered the currency “a digital form of fiat”. He added that Proof-of-Work (PoW) is essential, arguing that this feature makes Bitcoin (BTC) “the only honest money there is.”
Youssef proceeded to critique Ethereum by saying that it “is not decentralized” and added that the whole network is controlled by a “small group” of individuals.
Youssef also said that Ethereum is responsible for facilitating the creation of countless tokens that have led to scams that cost users billions of dollars over the years.
“You have my word as a CEO and as a human being that I will always put purpose before profit. We’re really going to do this brothers and sisters,” wrote Youssef in his ending remarks.
Paxful is a very popular P2P crypto marketplace, especially among African users. The company was featured on TIME’s list of 100 Most Influential Companies of 2022. In March, the company had more than 9 million users globally.
