BTC strategist discusses the controversy around Ethereum supply

• BTC strategist Pierre Rochard shared his views on the supply of Ethereum. 
• He said that auditing the supply is risky for the network users. 
• Rochard believes Ethereum can’t complete with Bitcoin to be a store of value.

In a recent episode of “Pomp Podcast” hosted by Anthony Pompliano, Pierre Rochard, a Bitcoin strategist at Kraken, discussed the controversy surrounding Ethereum supply. He said that the difficulty associated with auditing the supply carries a big risk for the network users. 

It introduces a vulnerability whereby your ETH could get diluted, and you’re really in the dark as to whether you’re buying ETH. Are you actually receiving legit ETH or is this fractional reserve ETH that was kind of created out of thin air?

A few days back, Rochard had started the debate over ETH’s supply. He then paid Mark-Andre Dumas, senior integration specialist at MakerDAO, to come up with code to calculate it. However, the answer that the code produced has led to additional confusion. The debate continues to rage over what Ethereum’s total supply is and/or if it even matters. 

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum hands out rewards in many ways that aren’t included in the final blockchain. Therefore, it’s difficult to audit its total supply and third-party data sites end up with different numbers. According to Rochard, this dependence on third-party sites is another problem. 

It’s about decentralization. If we’re going to trust centralized third parties, we might as well go back to the Federal Reserve.

Rochard said that he disagrees with the narrative that Ethereum can complete with Bitcoin as a store of value. He further added that if “something bad” were to happen to ETH, it would impact other coins like Bitcoin as well.