SBF, Erik Voorhees and the battle for crypto’s soul
Two of crypto’s most influential thinkers are sparring on social media about how to respond to a growing regulatory storm hanging over the industry. The debate pitted Erik Voorhees, the famously libertarian founder of token service ShapeShift, against FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who angered the crypto world with a Wednesday blog post suggesting ways to confront the industry’s legal and hacking problems.
SBF has this year emerged as the most powerful man in crypto, and has tarnished his influence both in Washington, DC, and in the market where he has taken on weaker competitors. His blog post isn’t particularly radical, and some of his suggestions went over well – like trying to limit hackers’ bounties to 5% when they loot a project. But the SBF’s call for restrictions on who can access DeFi platforms, and to cooperate with the Treasury Department’s powerful sanctions agency known as OFAC, caused an uproar.
In a rebuttal, Voorhees declared that for crypto to submit to OFAC’s authority is to embrace tyranny, and he condemned the agency’s practice of sanctioning the population of entire countries — why, he asks, should people be restricted from sending financial aid to the brave women of Iran ? More fundamentally, he fears that imposing the permissions on platforms like Uniswap – designed to act as autonomous code – is a deep violation of the ethos of crypto, which is about building tools to let people spend money outside the control of banks and governments.
Voorhees and SBF then took the debate to Twitter, in which the latter said he does not support the OFAC regime, but merely recognizes the reality of the law as it is. Needless to say, the pair didn’t come to an agreement, but their exchange is refreshing both for the sophistication of their ideas and for its high level of civility – a refreshing break from the smears and jabs that all too often define Crypto Twitter.
On one level, the SBF-Voorhees debate shows how the crypto industry is struggling to find a balance between ideals and pragmatism at a time when the government is breathing down its neck. But on another level, it reflects a generational struggle in crypto: Voorhees came up in the early days of Bitcoin and embodies the radical libertarianism of the first crypto builders. SBF, meanwhile, arrived on the scene nearly a decade later and views the industry through the lens of big finance. Going forward, it will be fascinating to see whose set of ideas prevails – and whether crypto has room for both.
Jeff John Roberts
[email protected]
@jeffjohnroberts
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