Lubin made his remark during a panel with Vitalik Buterin and Yoni Assia at the Ethereal Summit Tel Aviv on Sept. 15, according to live reporting from eToro analyst Mati Greenspan on Twitter.
Ethereum (ETH) co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin has characterized both Bitcoin and Ethereum’s conceptions as being “immaculate.”
To a seasoned ear, Lubin’s comment pointedly reproduces a phrase previously used by staunch Bitcoin maximalists in reference to the conceptual and technological elegance of Satoshi’s invention and to the equally shrewd choice of timing for the publication of its white paper.
Twin titans
His sleight of hand in extending this characterization to Ethereum’s founding could rattle the Bitcoiners’ cage, with Lubin’s tacit point preempted and contextualized by his co-panelists Assia and Buterin, the first of whom remembered how:
“Back then in 2013, the Bitcoin community was very maximalist and said that things like tokenization were impossible.”
To which Buterin added:
“That was very disheartening because I thought we were all on the same team. In a lot of ways though it was fine because it gave us some breathing room. Because there’s already Bitcoin as a store of value but for Ethereum it gave us a more clear use case because we didn’t have to try to be hard money.”
All three panelists are reported to have positioned themselves non-tribally as “decentralized protocol maximalists.”
Ether’s annunciation
Bitcoin maximalism is, especially in the current cryptocurrency market climate, alive and well — with many analysts isolating the top coin from other cryptocurrencies and focusing instead on its interaction with the traditional financial sector at a time of significant macroeconomic upheaval.
Against this somewhat fashionable signalling of the death knell for altcoins, a summer 2019 report from institutional crypto exchange San Francisco Open Exchange proposed that Ether is arguably no longer an altcoin as it “is coming into its own as a blockchain that is publicly recognized as an asset on its own terms, much like Bitcoin.”
Many cryptocurrency traders remain more skeptical, as Ether continues to hover below the $200 mark. Earlier today, technical analyst and trader Michaël van de Poppe quipped on Ethereum finally showing bullish signs:
“So, does anybody know how the flippening is going?
Not even close, right?
Good old days with the potential flip of $ETH / $BTC.”
Italian Soccer Giant Juventus Inks Deal for Ethereum-Based Player Collectibles
Top Italian soccer team Juventus is launching digital collectibles of its star players on blockchain-enabled fantasy football platform Sorare.
The freshly inked licensing deal, announced on Wednesday, will see Juventus offer digitally rare collectible «cards» of world-famous players such as Cristiano Ronaldo on Sorare.
Sorare, which is based in Paris, France, provides a soccer team management game with digital cards – created with ethereum tech – representing players that fans can collect and trade. The firm told CoinDesk the cards represent non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on ethereum’s ERC-721 standard.
“We are very proud to have signed this agreement with such an Italian heavyweight,» said Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia. «We see this as a new key step in our vision to onboard the best soccer clubs from around the world and bring blockchain-gaming to football fans around the world.”
Other top European clubs have already joined the platform, including Atletico Madrid, Porto and AS Roma.
For each player, Sorare issues 1 «Unique» card, 10 «Super Rare» cards and 100 «Rare» cards. For the Juventus tie-up, Cristiano Ronaldo collectibles will launch on Feb. 20, with the same 111 cards to be offered.
The cards are used in Sorare’s game to comprise five player teams, or can be traded in the secondary market. The firm said some of the Unique cards have fetched prices of over $2,000.
Juventus has a huge global fan base, in part thanks to a trophy cabinet stuffed with gilded metalwork. The team has won the European Championship two times, the Intercontinental Cup two times and has topped the Italian Serie A league 35 times.
This isn’t Juventus’ first foray into the world of blockchain. In 2018, the club launched a token that allowed fans to participate in polls, thus giving them more «voice» in the club’s activities. The token was launched in partnership with Socios, which recently also helped FC Barcelona launch a similar token.
