- Senator Elizabeth Warren has criticized the crypto industry for not protecting new and less wealthy users
- Warren cited examples of three-figure Ethereum transaction fees and exchanges going down at crucial times
- Such issues have plagued the crypto space for years
Elizabeth Warren has criticized the fees on the Ethereum platform as an example of the risks involved in cryptocurrency investing and trading. The Democratic Senator, speaking yesterday at the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, also highlighted the recent drop in the cryptocurrency market, citing the failure of cryptocurrency exchanges to cope with the volume on such days as yet more evidence that newcomers to the market could easily get wiped out through no fault of their own.
Warren Accuses Crypto of Neglecting Core Values
Warren was discussing how the cryptocurrency space had essentially failed in its mission of financial inclusion, stating that the price to sell on decentralized exchanges at times of market crashes penalized “the people who are most economically vulnerable [because they] are the ones who are most likely to have to withdraw their money the fastest when the market drops.”
The gas fees on exchanges like Uniswap have been well documented in recent years, something that Ethereum’s upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 is meant to tackle. However, the solution to high gas fees is still some way off, resulting in a gas war for those trying to salvage their portfolios in market downturns.
No End in Sight to Problems
Warren also highlighted how these crashes also affect those who use centralized exchanges, which all too often fail when overloaded, once again leading to users unable to execute trades and potentially lose their funds.
These are issues that the cryptocurrency industry has tried to deal with since the bull run of 2017, but the fact is that they are still a problem, with the cost of transacting on the Bitcoin blockchain also still prohibitively high, and they don’t look like disappearing anytime soon.
