Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and global economist Nouriel Roubini are working out the details for a live debate about cryptocurrencies.
Forbes senior editor Laura Shin, who first invited the two to debate on her podcast Unchained: Big Ideas From the Worlds of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, was instantly dismissed by Roubini who called her a shill for the crypto industry.
Shin’s dismissal opened the door for other candidates.
Buterin suggested Kevin Pham, who he says is “equally 100% biased against both of us!” Buterin and Pham exchanged words on Twitter earlier this year after Pham, a crypto tweeter, theorized that Buterin has a deal with the Russian government that would prevent him from leaving Ethereum.
Twitter users also suggested Tone Vays, John McAfee, Joe Rogan and the Dalai Lama.
Given the intense trolling and mud slinging, it’s hard to say if the debate will actually happen. Pointed and scathing, Roubini has vilified Buterin, casting him as a mastermind who swindled and cheated his way to billions in fake wealth.
Roubini’s takedown targets the entire cryptocurrency market as well as computer scientists and developers who are working on blockchain, the underlying technology of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Famed for predicting the global financial crisis in 2008, Roubini appeared before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Community Affairs at a hearing on Thursday where he called crypto “the mother of all scams and bubbles” and blockchain “the most hyped tech ever.”
Buterin, who set the record straight on his “billionaire” status, revealed the amount of ETH he’s actually holding.
In what appears to be a dig at Roubini, who has also called Buterin a “dictator”, Buterin suggested that he needed no “special knowledge” to predict the next global financial collapse. Roubini swiftly told Buterin to “shut up.”
The planning of a debate between the two adversaries took another intense turn when Roubini lambasted Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto exchange BitMEX, in response to an offer from BitMEX to host the debate and “pay all production costs”.
Roubini promptly called BitMEX a “typical cesspool of crypto trading” and a “criminal scam”.