What really happened with MyEtherWallet yesterday. The full Story and my opinion on the way forward.

I want to address the social media takeover of MEW-founder Taylor Monahan. As you all know by now, the MyEtherWallet handle on Twitter was all of a sudden renamed "MyCrypto". Without any transparency the Twitter account for MyEtherWallet was taken over.

 

This resulted in a lot of FUD. Not even the co-creators (or the actual developer) of MEW knew what was going on. In a later official statement on Reddit, Kvhnuke said that when he made MEW, he needed help with marketing, business development etc. He started collaborating with Taylor, and she did her job well. So well in fact that MEW became the number one wallet for ERC20 tokens.

And then they decided to split up. However, the way she did it, by just taking over a Twitter handle, and then claiming it is her own Twitter account (because she says she treated it like her own) is just very unprofessional. She spread a LOT of unnesecarry FUD in the space. People thought not only the Twitter handle was hacked, but that MEW it self was unsafe.

And when she' now confronted with the bad move, she just answers by pushing away responsibility like a butthurt social justice warrior or something. Me personally, I didn't even know. nor did I care who created or ran MEW. It was a solid project, and since it does not store your Ether(tokens) but works like a tool to access it - I didn't have to trust them THAT much. But some consensus on the site's legitimacy is needed. You have to for instance be 99,999% sure that your money won't be stolen and that the site is up to date security-wise (even though you are extra safe with your Ledger Nano S)

Now, for all the wrong reasons, I DO know who Taylor is. She is a woman I don't like. Because the only publicity she's ever gotten is from a terrible decision of taking over a verified Twitter handle that is trusted. Even if it's YOU who run it, it's still something more than just a personal account. It should be treated with care. You have hundreds of thousands of people relying on it for verifications of issues or FUD or fake news or hacks or whatever. Once you destroy that trust...well..can we trust you?

For me it was such a turn off, that I will of course not support MyCrypto at this point - but stick with MyEtherWallet.

Ask yourself this; If this woman has such bad judgement, and poor character that she just steals a Twitter handle and does a hostile takeover like this - is this someone you trust would not try to steal your money as well? Sure, use your Ledger etc, but still, you want to be able to have trust in the site you're using?

In Taylors defence, there is rumor that Kvhnuke hasn't done any programming or work in the last 6 months. If this is true or not I don't know at this stage. Perhaps the success has gone to his head, and he's now a junkie or something.. Then I will have to reconsider :)

Everyone who's been or are an entrepreneur knows how relationships can be very difficult. But when thousands of people rely on you with their money, you have to do things more professionally, and don't view yourself as a victim. Your "victimhood" is the least interesting thing here.

Remember to follow MEW on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/myetherwallet