Taylor Monahan, who was the co-founder of MyEtherWallet (MEW) and is the founder of MyCrypto, recently, responded to BitcoinFoundation.org founder Charlie Shrem’s concerns over EOS’s overwhelming centralization.
Shrem was concerned about EOS’s block producers to freeze seven EOS accounts due to phishing and scamming tactics. He mentioned on Twitter on Monday that, while he understands that no coin can be completely decentralized, he was “bullish” in EOS because he has high respect for Dan Larimer and his team.
The BitcoinFoundation.org founder added he felt shameful that he has put “EOS in the same category as Ripple.” Monahan responded to Shrem’s tweet by telling her own personal experiences with phishers and scammers on MEW.
Monahan Speaks up About Phishing Scams on MEW
The MyCrypto founder mentioned that, on July 5, 2017, phishers started to see a great opportunity to hit Slack channels with MEW phishing links. As Monahan saw people lose money, she could not help but see it as her own failure as the company failed to educate their users.
She said:
“I spent a lot of time tracking the phishers. Recording addresses, URLs, watching money move from account to account, cross-referencing, and hoping to see it end up in an exchange account one day and catching the bad guys.”
Monahan mentioned that she had tracked the addresses down and had a list of people who she believed were responsible for the phishing attacks. She also found out how the money was moving, including the URLs, and spreadsheets.
The MyCrypto founder cracked a joke that she “was quickly approaching murder-wall level.” As she felt as though she made much progress, Monahan realized that someone who she pinned as one of the top criminals was actually a victim who lost all of his money.
She quickly realized that, instead of phishers, the list she had collected was actually the victims of the attack. Monahan stated:
“If I hadn’t noticed this and/or if I had the authority to fuck over these phishers, I could have very easily made a mistake that punished the victims (again), not the phishers. Very, very easily. This is one reason centralization of authority is bad.”
Online Cryptocurrency Community Furious About EOS Block Producer’s Decision
When the EOS block producers froze suspicious user accounts, the community expressed extreme outrage. For a company supporting decentralization, their decisions were clearly centralized.
Nick Szabo, who is a cryptocurrency enthusiast, took to Twitter to state that:
“In EOS a few complete strangers can freeze what users thought was their money. Under the EOS protocol, you must trust a constitutional organization comprised of people you will likely never get to know.”
He called the constitution “unscalable and a security hole.”
The fact that the block producers have the power to protect and punish people have split the cryptocurrency community.
Some like Twitter user MaxFerlatte mentioned that rules are important to keep the wider cryptocurrency community safe for the long term and that protecting and punishing others is “basic and beautiful thing.”
Shrem responded in anger by stating that no one has the right to decide who is protected and punished and that it defeats the purpose of a cryptocurrency.
There is growing concern that the block producer’s design may be unfair, and that they may be punishing the wrong group of people. As Monahan mentioned, centralization of authority can be dangerous, especially when the authorities may not have the complete picture.
On Tuesday, EOS New York defended their decision in a Steemit post. While their actions are “not what Block Producers are meant to do,” they decided to freeze the accounts because of the “evidence brought forth.”
