Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin Concerned About Musk Twitter Takeover

In the latest blockchain news, Elon Musk is now “Chief Twit,” after finalizing a months-long buyout agreement for Twitter. Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and has brought on several consultants from the crypto industry as he seeks to revamp and profit from the social media platform.

Although the reportedly world’s richest man did not mention cryptocurrency as one of the reasons for spending $44 billion to remove Twitter from public markets, there are clear signs that Twitter is moving towards Web3.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao contributed funds to the Twitter buyout to serve as an adviser to Musk, alongside Andreessen Horowitz general partner Sriram Krishnan, a known crypto enthusiast, and PayPal member David Sacks.

Binance Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann said that the Musk Twitter acquisition is “a chance to take a prestigious Web2 platform and use it as a sandbox to start taking apart some of the challenges that we’ve seen become synthetical in the Web2 space.”

Musk Announces Re-Vamped “Blue-Checkmark” System

The now Twitter CEO stated he wants to revamp the Twitter verification system that countless creators and personalities have relied on for years. Musk wants to charge users $8 per month to retain their verification badge or obtain one on the platform after an earlier report suggested he might seek even more for the verification.

On Tuesday, Musk outlined his plan on Twitter and called the current system that gives out the blue checkmark badges “bulls**t.” Per Musk, the blue check feature, signifying that the person’s identity has been verified by Twitter, would become part of Twitter Blue, which costs $5 a month, enabling anyone willing to pay for the service to be “verified.”

Ethereum Founder Apprehensive On Twitter Takeover

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin stated in a series of tweets that a lack of due diligence in the verification process would hinder the feature’s anti-scam role. Buterin’s tweets were in response to Musk’s announcement the verification feature would become a part of Twitter Blue.

In the tweet, he stated, “How well this works depends on exactly how much due diligence is done to make sure blue checks are who they say they are. “Pay $8/month and call yourself whatever” would damage the blue check’s anti-scam role. But if there’s more actual verification, the result is very different.”

Under current rules, Twitter requires users to go through a verification process demonstrating that their account is authentic, notable, and active, which typically involves uploading a government ID.

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