Binance CEO on Buterin’s ‘Burn in Hell’ Comments: ‘There is No Absolute Decentralization’

In an interview with TechCrunch last week, Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, said that he hopes that centralized exchanges go “burn in hell”. Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, though, is not having it.

Last week, Vitalik Buterin, who is well-known for his directness, called out centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, saying:

I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible.

Needless to say, the statement quickly spread across the crypto community like wildfire. Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance – currently the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange by means of 24-hour traded volumes – expressed his opinion on the matter.

All in the Same Boat

Zhao pointed out the necessity of seeing the bigger picture. He noted that fiat currency has, in fact, had a huge impact on the development of its decentralized counterpart. He outlined that if it wasn’t for fiat currency and centralized exchanges, digital coins would have had far less liquidity and that the industry itself would have been a lot smaller.

As Zhao notes:

Just because someone else is doing the lowly grunt work, doesn’t make them dirty.

Interestingly enough, despite wishing all cryptocurrency exchanges to “burn in hell,” Vitalik also acknowledged the fact that decentralized exchanges are only going to become prominent at a later point. The co-founder of Ethereum also pointed out that centralized exchanges are only viable because they serve as a gateway between cryptocurrencies and fiat.

Zhao pointed out that there is no true decentralization and that if a project has a core team, it still has a sense of centralization. He even called out Buterin himself, saying:

Today, Vitalik probably has more king-like powers than anyone else in the industry, and has used it, by serving as advisors for projects, therefore, helped to decide their fate, at least fate of their ICOs to a large extent.

He also fired some shots, saying that “decentralization is not safer by default”. He pointed out the situation of Ethereum Classic and Ethereum DAO, where the decentralized organization became the victim of a breach in its security, causing a hard fork of the original network.

“I Am All for Blockchain/Decentralization/Freedom”

Despite his rebuttal of Buterin’s slur, Zhao said that he’s “all for blockchain/decentralization/freedom.” This is evident in the fact that Binance is moving forward with its very own decentralized project – Binance Chain.

The company’s stance on the matter of centralization and decentralization is clearly outlined in the project’s official announcement:

Centralized and Decentralized exchanges will co-exist in the near future, complementing each other, while also having interdependence. We stand here today because we believe that Blockchain technology will change the world.

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