Paxful, a cryptocurrency exchange, said Wednesday that it has removed Ethereum from its platform. The firm said that it was concerned about the security of the blockchain system. The decision to delist ETH comes at an immediate effect on the platform, the company CEO Ray Youssef said. The CEO brought out the fact that the blockchain infrastructure has moved away from the proof-of-reserves mechanism and toward the proof-of-stake system.
We finally kicked #ethereum off our marketplace. 11.6m humans safer. Integrity over revenue 🤝🏽 Who is next ? pic.twitter.com/JTJXa5RYJ8
— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) December 21, 2022
Paxful’s CEO said, there is a small handful of individuals that dictate the direction of the Ethereum network. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market size, may suffer severely if the allegation is upheld. Youssef acknowledged that use cases involving money, such as credit and lending, may benefit from Ethereum, but he was critical of the tokenization technique used by the blockchain. He said in a statement that Ethereum had led to the creation of tokens that were really frauds that had stolen billions of dollars from their victims. The ETH tokens, he said, took away from Bitcoin’s momentum.
ETH is not decentralized. It is controlled by a small group of people and one day you will need permission to use it.
Ray Youssef, CEO – Paxful
When Paxful announced support for ETH in April 2021, the business said that “Ethereum provides customers a new opportunity to claim their place in the crypto world.” Paxful also allowed trading for USDT and USDC stablecoins. The company also lauded Ethereum’s transaction timings at the time, saying, “making ETH a top-tier cryptocurrency if you’re seeking for rapid turnaround times.”
On December 12, in response to a tweet by software developer Jeremy Garcia, Paxful’s CEO first indicated intentions to delete ETH. Garcia had criticised Ethereum as a doomed project with a weak architecture and “a foundation of sand,” in contrast to Bitcoin’s “foundation of granite.”
Working to remove eth from our marketplace. Revenue is nice but integrity trumps all https://t.co/k57ZYgGdqT
— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) December 12, 2022
After the failure of FTX in November 2022, the Chief Executive Officer of Paxful has been an outspoken supporter of the concept of self-custody for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Youssef pleaded with users of cryptocurrencies to move their Bitcoin holdings to storage under their own control, and users of Paxful were advised to do the same.
