http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-seaman/in-bitcoins-barry-silbert_b_11353372.htmlFrom the link
David Seaman YouTuber, researcher, and cryptocurrency enthusiast
As readers may already know, I used my space here to draw attention to Barry Silbert’s Ethereum Classic scam. You can read that coverage here and here.
A source assures me Classic meets the loose definition of a scam: it is in no way Ethereum. It is just an insecure orphan chain which is being promoted by a wealthy guy in New York, relentlessly, in a way that would be absolutely illegal if “Ethereum” were a publicly traded company or commodity - which it may well be one day soon, in some form.
Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin has publicly pledged “100%” of his support to ETH, the main blockchain for the Ethereum community.
Especially in light of Mr. Silbert’s prior cryptocurrency run-in with the S.E.C., my source suggests a second look from authorities might result in more than a slap on the wrist this time, especially since CoinDesk - a leading cryptocurrency media outlet wholly acquired by Mr. Silbert’s Digital Currency Group recently - has shifted to a “discernible” and “biased” promotional strategy for Classic since the acquisition.
“Kathryn [Haun] owes you a drink,” the source joked, referring to assistant U.S. attorney Kathryn Haun, who heads up the digital currency crimes office for the United States Dept. of Justice in San Francisco.
Nearly a week after our first stories about Mr. Silbert broke, he finally responded to my multiple public inquiries asking for an explanation. “Yeah, I care what you think,” Mr. Silbert tweeted to my personal Twitter account.
It’s not what I think that remotely matters, Mr. Silbert. It’s the Ethereum investors, the Ethereum developers, the American and international corporations developing on Ethereum, and the law enforcement community - they are the ones who want answers, not me.
I couldn’t care less.
Disclosure: At time of publication, I hold some bitcoin, ether, US dollars, and gold in my long term portfolio. As I held ether at the time of the fork, I also have a “Classic” position by default but have not sold any - Classic is a scam and I am uninterested in profiting from the sale of duplicate tokens.
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www.twitter.com/d_seaman Oh yeah dude you got it all figured out, we're over here trying to keep integrity going while eth promised their world supercomputer can't be tampered with or controlled by anyone, then did just the opposite because the development team had too much to lose. Then there's the fact that because of etc inception the same dev team got a ton of free etc that is worth a decent amount of money, did they cough any up to bailout the exchanges and others who lost because of their errors? Nope kept it for themselves. So yeah your totally right, we are the scammers that try to control the blockchain and can't contribute free money to people who lost alot due to our incompetence. And don't forget to mention our public call to 51% attack their chain, might as well get it all in there if your gonna manufacture obviously self serving bullshit.
When the story broke about the DAO hack and David was covering this he did a video where he was talking to ETH insiders explaining why the fork was critical and why they were going to do this. Now the funny thing with David is that he is a libertarian, and many of his ideas seem to emphasize this which I happen to agree with myself. But when it came to this topic of the fork and the authoritarian steps they were going to take David was more than willing to swallow his ethics and principals to go along with this.
Now this spoke volumes about his position. First it told me that David must be up to his eyeballs in the DAO and I know he is heavily invested in ETH. So he is no longer an unbiased source of information. Secondly it told me that he was willing to compromise his personal beliefs in order to save his behind. Thirdly it told me that he has gotten too close to the ETH insiders to be able to see objectively any longer.
I assume that based on the article that David is once again illustrating for us that he has too much on line and has made a deal with the devil and anything that puts his holdings at risk is subject to attack. I posted on David's video from that interview with the ETH insider that I was very disappointed and after that video I was going to be looking at my options because I no longer believed the path that ETH was on was correct. I know my views were not popular then just like they are not popular now.
It appears that just because you put yourself out there on a daily basis talking about these subjects this somehow makes you an "expert". Sadly David is a biased and partial participant in all of this and is the last person you should be asking for an opinion. It isn't like he is a journalist just "covering a story" from an objective point of view. That isn't the case at all.
The sad truth of the matter is that David has compromised his values, and has put himself in a very bad place and instead of doing the wise thing and reflecting on the road he has chosen he has decided the deal with the devil is still better than the high road of ETC.
David should be met with scorn and rebuke. He has lost credibility just like ETH has and really should be treated as such. It really is too bad. I think David is a good guy who has put himself in a bad place. Time will tell if David comes back to his roots and chooses the path of open, decentralized, immutable block chains. For now just expect him to do the devils bidding until that happens.
