The Ethereum scaling wars are raging on social media due to the problems that this chain is facing, with fees on layer one (L1) at very high levels. Zhu Su, CEO of Three Arrows Capital, a major VC crypto firm, has announced that he is withdrawing support for the project, criticizing the channel’s current state. Emin Gun Sirer, Founder and CEO of Ava Labs, the company behind Avalanche, stated that Avalanche will be able to scale regardless of its growth.
Ethereum facing the heat in social media
The high fees that users have to pay to transact on Ethereum L1 are prompting supporters of the channel to make their voices heard on social media about the issues it causes. Zhu Su, CEO of Three Arrows Capital, voiced his discomfort with the state of the Ethereum chain right now, and how its proponents have failed to scale its operation. On Twitter, Su stated:
Yes, I have given up on Ethereum despite its support in the past. Yes Ethereum has abandoned its users despite supporting them in the past. Ethereum culture suffers massively from the founders’ dilemma. Everyone is already far too rich to remember what they originally planned to do.
Su criticized that, for newcomers, the chain is unusable due to its high fees. The tweet had over 15,000 likes, including 4,000 in the first hour of the tweet. This display of discomfort was also complemented by the opinion of other industry insiders, like Ryan Selkis, CEO of Messari, who stated:
It doesn’t matter that Ethereum is more of a security, because the only people who can afford to use it are accredited anyway.
Avalanche Enters the Fray
Avalanche is often pitted against Ethereum as one of the most prolific substitutes in the cryptocurrency market right now. Although the network offers lower transaction fees, this is often attributed to the lower usage it experiences compared to Ethereum. On this subject, Emin Gun Sirer, Founder and CEO of Ava Labs stress:
Keep hearing this: ‘but but but some day Avalanche will be as slow as Ethereum.’ No. Avalanche has brought us the greatest advances in terms of consensus and rapprochement. We’ll tackle minor engineering issues without batting an eyelid.
The proponents of the original smart contract chain have focused on scaling the chain with L2 solutions based on rollups, like Arbitrum and Optimism, which has led some users to other chains like Avalanche and Solana, as high fees are unlikely to change soon.
