Buterin Reveals Support For Virgil Griffith Following North Korea Controversy

The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin has just announced that he is in support with the American arrested for his blockchain activities in North Korea, Virgil Griffith.

Controversially, the researcher at Ethereum has been the talk of the town, in cryptocurrency terms, these past few days after he took a trip to North Korea to talk about blockchain technology. Griffith has been accused of teaching the countries people on using blockchain but in a specific manner as to avoid the United States sanctions. It’s worth noting that the researcher has received multiple warnings not to do so. 

Buterin shared a link to a blog post written by the CEO Enrico Talin of blockchain firm, commerc.io who which had appealed directly to the Ethereum co-founder to help start a petition in support of Griffith in arguments stating that he is a man of peace.

“Let’s not have another Aaron Swartz martyr in our hands,” Talin wrote, in reference to the hacker and political activist who killed himself six years ago before his high-profile federal trial.

Buterin supports Griffith though, stating that he is going to be signing the petition to help see the researcher freed. Considering that Griffith works with the Ethereum Foundation, this is questionable behaviour.

I refuse to take the convenient path of throwing Virgil under the bus, because I firmly believe that that would be wrong. I'm signing. Reasoning below.https://t.co/E44p5caeJO

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 1, 2019

Due to his actions, Griffith has been placed under arrest and accused of violating “the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).”

Most of crypto Twitter has since been talking about whether these consequences fit the crime or not.

It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. For more news on this and other crypto updates, keep it with CryptoDaily!