Elon Musk Blasts Bitcoin and Ethereum Over Scalability Issues

July
9, 2021

3 min read

This story originally appeared on ValueWalk

Elon Musk took to Twitter to slam bitcoin and ethereum over their high transaction rates and fees, while underlining the “merit” of using dogecoin as a base layer blockchain. This was in response to dogecoin investor and YouTuber Matt Wallace.

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Elon Musk Shares His View On Bitcoin And Ethereum

Writing to dogecoin influencer Matt Wallace on Twitter, Musk said that bitcoin and ethereum are “pursuing a multilayer transaction system, but base layer transaction rate is slow and transaction cost is high,” as reported by Forbes.

Several crypto enthusiasts replied to Musk in the way of criticism, raising questions about how exchanges would act as a second layer for dogecoin, while others urged Musk to research scalability solutions for bitcoin and ethereum.

Anthony Sassano, a prominent Ethereum supporter, joked, “Pack it up everyone –Elon solved blockchain scalability.” Joel Heyman, a feverish bitcoin supporter added “I can’t believe people listen to this.”

In March this year, Ethereum’s fees skyrocketed as well as its network congestion, while reaching an all-time fee value of $42 after stabilizing within the $16-$20 range, squeezing users who were looking to make small transactions on the platform.

“Present infrastructure of cryptocurrency networks will need to be expanded in a suitable way to absorb increasing transaction volumes along with an increasing number of users,” asserts digital investment platform Bitpanda.

Not Quite There, Yet

Lightning Network has offered big improvements to bitcoin and ethereum transaction times and costs.

However, according to Cointelegraph regarding Lightning Network, “there is no telling what will happen if the payment will have to take too convoluted a route. Surely, if your transaction will need to go through dozens of intermediate channels, the fees will add up.”

With analysts predicting it could achieve a 40% price gain on bitcoin, ethereum just recently announced its London fork and already has miners and stakers gasping for the big answer: will this be a long-haul solution to resolve Ethereum’s scalability problems?

According to Abdelhamid Bakhta, one of the main authors of EIP-1559, misinformation about the upcoming London upgrade is widespread.

He emphasizes that EIP-1559 is not being introduced to decrease the current congestion and high fees but rather, it seeks to introduce the concept of “block elasticity,” which means that the theoretical maximum capacity of the platform is doubled.

So, he says, the short answer is “no,” as the upgrade “will not be the long-term solution that Ethereum needs to resolve its scalability problems.” Still, the growing introduction of layer 2 solutions will certainly alleviate fee and congestion issues in the network, he asserts.