Yesterday on Twitter, Steffen Vogt of the IOTA Chronicle site and self-described “Crypto/Blockchain/Tangle/Innovation evangelist” called for a boycott of Coinbase, Zcash and the Digital Currency Group for what he sees as a coordinated misinformation campaign against IOTA.

Share this everywhere. Boycott Coindesk. Boycott the Digital Currency Group and Zcash. These guys are not here for progress. Just for returns on investment. — Tangleblog.com (@tangleblog) 28 April 2018

In the IOTA community there is a widespread feeling that they are suffering from FUD spread by people with ties to Zcash. Quite why this should be the case is unclear as the two currencies are not direct competitors.

Vogt’s tweet mentions an article shared by Zcash’s founder, Zooko Wilcox. The article in question is from TNW and gives details on University College London ending its relationship with the IOTA foundation.

The IOTA community is suspicious of the relationships between Zcash and the Digital Currency Group, which bought Coindesk in 2016 and was also an early investor in ZEC.

The Digital Currency Group has further links to Zcash through Grayscale, an investment company established in 2013 which offers investment vehicles in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP and Zcash (ZEC). Notably it does not offer investments in IOTA.

Zcash has recently removed its investors from its website (archived version here) which has only added to the belief that there is something to hide.

However, according to Wilcox, the removal of the investors from the Zcash webpage is simply because “they were important to getting the project off the ground in the first place but they aren’t very relevant today”.

The investors page is available in the Wayback Machine if you want it. They were important to getting the project off the ground in the first place but they aren’t very relevant today. — zooko (@zooko) 28 April 2018

Although many in the IOTA community clearly feel that their project needs to be defended, others are tired of the claims and counterclaims and would prefer to rise above it and focus on the technology.

Certainly those with an interest in IOTA’s success need to be careful in how they respond to these claims. Correctly or not, the IOTA community has a reputation for aggression towards critics.

Vogt himself says that he welcomes constructive criticism of the technology, but insists that the currency situation is different and demands a response.

Criticising IOTA with solid reason in a constructive way would be great and acceptable. But don’t tell me this is the same. Problem of the cryptsphere is corruption, nepotism and hypocrisy. — Tangleblog.com (@tangleblog) 29 April 2018

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