William Shatner Offers Support for Vitalik Buterin

In a recent Tweet, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, William Shatner, defended Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin from detractors.

Just like how the original Star Trek series embraced the concept of new technologies, the star of the series has also shown a fascination for new innovations. William Shatner, known to countless fans as Captain Kirk, is a prolific user of Twitter and has become interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. In a recent series of Tweets, the good captain has mounted a spirited defense of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

A Simple Thumbs-Up Leads to a Debate

A few days ago, William Shatner sent out a Tweet where he just gave a thumbs-up emoji to Vitalik Buterin. This move started a mini-firestorm of conflicting opinions.

Right out of the gate, one person said that Buterin was a “literal scammer.” Shatner, always willing to fire back at critics on Twitter, responded by saying:

Then as a coder – go develop your own blockchain technology where you can be 1000% sure of decentralization. Or shove money in a mattress. I hear that’s only overseen by the bed bug community.

This was followed by a humorous series of Star Trek-themed memes by others. However, Shatner was quite willing to continue his spirited defense. He went on to say that his critic’s “viewpoints don’t take into account the fact that the code has to be audited by an auditing firm and approved by consortium or it doesn’t get accepted.”

However, this statement is wrong. Ethereum is an open-source project, so there is no consortium or auditing firm. Some individuals have said it’s great William Shatner is obviously studying up on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, but he should also be held accountable for getting stuff wrong.

In Defense of William Shatner

However, I think that one should go somewhat easy with Shatner. It appears that he’s making a legitimate effort to educate himself on the industry.

While one would expect him to do so due to his promotional deal with a Bitcoin mining company in Canada, the reality is that he could have just taken the money and done nothing else. The fact that he’s 87 years old and is willing to learn about this innovative new technology should be applauded.

Compare his enthusiasm to other members of his generation, such as mega-investor Warren Buffett. The financial wizard famously called Bitcoin “rat poison squared.”

As such, while it would be nice that William Shatner be 100 percent correct in all his cryptocurrency proclamations, we should be thrilled that such an iconic pop culture figure is taking the space seriously and is interested in learning more about it.

What do you think about William Shatner giving a thumbs-up to Vitalik Buterin? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Twitter/@WilliamShatner.