Ethereum Client Parity’s Afri Schoeden Quits Social Media Amid Community Infighting

Afri Schoeden, release manager at blockchain infrastructure firm Parity Technologies, has withdrawn from social media amid a spate of infighting in the Ethereum (ETH) community.

In a tweet posted on Feb. 17, Schoeden stated that “until further notice [...] I will no longer respond on Gitter, Skype, Discord, Slack, Wire, Twitter, and Reddit.”

Parity Technologies is a United Kingdom-based blockchain infrastructure provider, known primarily for developing one of the most well-known clients for Ethereum, also known as Parity. Parity’s forthcoming “Polkadot” protocol — a form of “para chain” that links many different types of blockchains — is slated to be released in Q3 2019.

Shoeden’s decision to temporarily exit the social media space appears to have been prompted by the antagonistic responses to a series of his tweets last week, all of which have now been deleted.

One of the most controversial, tweeted on Feb. 14, purportedly contended that “Polkadot delivers what Serenity ought to be” — Serenity (or “Ethereum 2.0”) being the final upgrade for the Ethereum network, when the mainnet will transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.

That same day, Shoeden had also reportedly stirred tempers with his tweet in regard to the purported limitations of the Beacon Chain (phase 0 of Ethereum’s transition to PoS), claiming:

“#Serenity Phase 0 will be a proof-of-stake beacon chain only interesting for investors (staking), no EVM transition functions, no smart contracts, thus no d-apps. And yet, we still look at another ~18 months timeline to launch phase 0 in 2020.”

One redditor’s top voted response to Schoeden’s remarks alleged his development work on Polkadot was in direct conflict of interest to the transition to Serenity, and further accused Shoeden of being allegedly “instrumental in delaying Constantinople launch from last October to January 16th and then again from Jan. 16th to February 27th.”

In regard to this latter accusation, the recent delay of the Constantinople hard fork — one of two system-wide upgrades that constitute the network’s third stage (Metropolis) of development on the way to Ethereum 2.0. — had little to do with Parity. Constantinople's earlier delay in October, meanwhile, was due to a consensus issue that was detected on the Ropsten testnet, affecting both Parity and the Ethereum client aleth.

Following the onslaught of criticism that surfaced in response to his arguably provocative Polkadot v.s. Ethereum 2.0 statement — with one redditor deriding Afri as “the Judas of our Ethereum community — Schoeden tweeted on Feb. 15:

“I want to clarify that I put out this tweet to stir discussion, not to cement a narrative.”

By press time, Parity representatives have not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment on Schoeden’s decision to step back from the discussion. Notably, core Ethereum developers — including Jeff Coleman and Hudson Jameson — have tweeted their firm support of Schoeden following his announcement.

As recently reported, the Ethereum core dev group is currently discussing a controversial new smart contract creation feature set to be released with Constantinople, dubbed Create2, which some have alleged could have negative security implications if it is not sufficiently reviewed.