FTX CEO Responds To Bitcoin Comments That Sparked Crypto Community Backlash

In a recent report, the Financial Times quoted SBF saying that Bitcoin has no future as a payments network. Furthermore, the FTX Boss also said that the network isn’t built for heavy transactions and does not boast scalability properties present in Proof-of-Stake blockchains, per the report from FT. 

Things that you’re doing millions of transactions a second with have to be extremely efficient and lightweight and lower energy cost. Proof of stake networks are.

Bankman-Fried has since responded to the story and claims that the media outlet cherry-picked their words in the report. SBF tweeted from his verified account on Monday that he also highlighted how Bitcoin could be leveraged as a store of value and has the potential to serve as a sort of decentralized gold.

To be clear I also said that it _does_ have potential as a store of value.

The BTC network can't sustain thousands/millions of TPS, although BTC can be xfered on lightning/L2s/etc. https://t.co/7ghQzz7eXa

Crypto Twitter Contrasts FTX CEO’s Bitcoin Stance

Both the initial report from the Financial Times and Sam Bankman-Fried’s response have triggered heavy backlash from the crypto community. While the FTX CEO stressed that the report was selective with words, the comments about Bitcoin as a payment network could be seen as critical and counterproductive considering the ongoing market slump.

Also, the recent debacle with LUNA and UST has supposedly fueled increased pressure from regulators lobbying for tighter crypto policies and stablecoin regulations. Some Twitter users opined that SBF’s comments reinforce the narrative against Proof-of-work blockchains propagated by European Union lawmakers. 

One of the crypto-sector most influential executives is clear: #bitcoin 's Proof of Work is inefficient and cannot be scaled. Not a great use case for paymentshttps://t.co/vHpkofDUwp

Hey @SBF_FTX the problem is that anti crypto politicians are using the FT article for their won agenda to ban POW in EU for instance, look at that tweet from an EU MEP:https://t.co/k3sQmASLdF

Crypto proponents also argued against SBF’s opinions, citing a decentralized protocol designed to facilitate super fast Bitcoin transactions – Lightning Network. Data from Blockstream shows that Lightning offers faster throughput speeds compared to PoS networks like Solana and mainstream payment portals like Visa and Paypal.

and you didn't bring up Lightning because…?

3/ With an estimated limit of 500 TPS per channel, the #LightningNetwork has a throughput of more than 40 million TPS based on the number of channels today (the equivalent of 14.4 TB size blocks), enabling it to become the global payment layer of the #Bitcoin circular economy. pic.twitter.com/t5FHSFpw2L

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