According to Cointelegraph: Eric Balchunas, a senior exchange-traded fund (ETF) analyst at Bloomberg, stirred controversy within the Ethereum community after sharing what many labeled as "misinformation" about the blockchain network. On October 7, Balchunas posted an excerpt from Benjamin Hart’s book, Bitcoin: Beginner’s Guide, in response to a request for crypto book recommendations from Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store. The post, now deleted, triggered an intense backlash online.
The excerpt Balchunas shared claimed that the U.S. government could shut down Ethereum by directing Amazon Web Services (AWS) to cut off its cloud services, given that a significant portion of Ethereum nodes use AWS. According to Ethernodes, approximately 28.4% of Ethereum nodes are hosted on AWS, but this would not be enough to entirely cripple the network. The book also controversially suggested that a rogue state or terrorist organization could force Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to hand over Ether by kidnapping him.
Many in the Ethereum community were quick to criticize Balchunas, accusing him of spreading blatant misinformation. Anthony Sassano, an Ethereum educator, called the post "propaganda" and expressed disappointment that Balchunas only deleted the post to avoid backlash. Jimmy Ragosa, a product manager at Consensys, described the excerpt as "the most propaganda-ridden paragraph ever."
Fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart also chimed in, noting that the replies to Balchunas’ post were bound to be intense. Balchunas later acknowledged the controversy, deleting the post and commenting, "Lol I don’t have time today, will just leave up Bitcoin sections."
This incident comes as Ethereum developers continue to emphasize efforts toward decentralizing the network, such as solo staking and reducing hardware requirements. These initiatives aim to address criticisms about centralization risks, particularly related to cloud-hosting services like AWS.
