Ethereum crash: when fake news and investors went too far

Last week, many of us cryptocurrency lovers and ethereum adopters were reminded that not all that glitters is gold.

Overnight – more like a few seconds, ethereum a cryptocurrency and payment system went from $317 to $0.10 sending many investors’ heart rates spinning as their monies took wings and flew.

How it started?

Anonymous messaging board 4Chan posted the news of the “death” of Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum after a car crash. To put the icing on the cake, 4Chan added “Now we have our answer. He was the glue” referring to the originator of the code for ethereum.

Investors might have ignored it at this point but the Times appeared to be validating the news when it posted a statement from entrepreneur Brock Pierce claiming it was British programmer Gavin Wood and not Buterin that was “the glue”.

Let’s bring you up to speed. Ethereum is the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency and was invented by the duo of Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood. The debate on which of the two young men actually wrote much of the code for Ethereum is an ongoing one. Tech blog, Mashable claims it is possible Wood could be the writer since he was at one point the lead developer and CTO of ethereum. However, Buterin is the more known face of the cryptocurrency given that he is more popular on social media platforms.

In any case, the 21 year old Buterin has since quashed the reports by posting pictures of himself – very alive, on social media.

Would everything go back to normal now? It will depend on whether investors are willing to decide how much they put into news reports. Ethererum gained traction on the back of bitcoin’s vulnerabilities following news of an imminent ‘fork’.

Now that ethereum is experiencing a type of bitcoin ‘fork’, is it time to jump to another cryptocurrency?