The two most striking conversations this week on the world’s largest microblogging platform were Elon Musk’s beef with Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer, and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s musings on a letter sent to Washington by crypto skeptics.

On Monday, Australian news outlet Crikey published an interview with Palmer, who was promoting his new podcast, Griftonomics, when he laid into the crypto industry.

“I wish it was the end of crypto, but it’s not,” Palmer said, before turning his thoughts to Musk: “He’s a grifter. He sells a vision in hopes that he can one day deliver what he’s promising, but he doesn’t know that. He’s just really good at pretending he knows.”

Palmer also said that he wrote a Python script that would automatically detect and report spam bots in a Twitter user’s mentions. The Dogecoin-loving Musk allegedly reached out to Palmer and asked for the script, but, according to Palmer: “It became apparent very quickly that he didn’t understand coding as well as he made out. He asked, ‘How do I run this Python script?'”

The Tesla CEO responded by saying his children wrote better code than Palmer. Musk also called Palmer “a tool.”

Palmer didn’t reply directly to Musk’s provocations, but he defended his spambot catcher in a subsequent mini-thread.

On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that a letter signed by 26 anti-crypto computer scientists, tech bloggers, and academics, including many former FAANG employees, had been presented to U.S. lawmakers.

The letter urges regulators to “take a critical, skeptical approach toward industry claims that crypto-assets are an innovative technology that is unreservedly good,” and it asked them to “resist pressure from digital asset industry financiers, lobbyists, and boosters.”

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin appeared to respond to the letter in a tweet thread on Friday.

Buterin also stated that crypto fans were upset and confused that British-Canadian tech blogger Cory Doctorow was a signatory to the letter, because they’d considered him an ally. In 2018, Doctorow delivered a keynote speech called “Decentralize, Democratize, or Die” at DevCon, the annual Ethereum developer conference.

Buterin also mentioned that he’s unhappy with the amount of infighting in the crypto community. He suggested it was a byproduct of success, because as businesses scale up they find themselves in more direct competition with each other.

Elsewhere

Lachlan Markay of Axios provided a pithy account of how Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-SC), who’s being investigated by the House Committee on Ethics for an alleged pump-and-dump scheme involving the “Let’s Go Brandon” coin, spent the last 10 days of 2021.

On Thursday, branded NFT creator Nifty’s announced a major partnership with Warner Bros.

Also that day, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT wrote a lengthy thread about Animoon, an NFT scam that couldn’t be more blatant to anyone even dimly aware of recent pop culture.

Barry Silbert, founder of the Digital Currency Group (which includes crypto asset management giant Grayscale), took issue with a proposal by the New York State Senate to impose a two-year moratorium on all fossil fuel-powered proof-of-work crypto mining, calling it a “job killer.”

But State Senate Bill S6486D passed 36-27 on Friday morning. It’s now headed to the desk of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who gets 10 days to sign it into law or veto it.

Coinbase, in the wake of a Q1 loss of $430 million, announced on Thursday it would not only be freezing hiring, it also would be rescinding offers recently accepted by candidates. Recruitment company Blind tweeted a job offer letter, which promised recipients the company wouldn’t be rescinding offers, alongside an email doing exactly the opposite.

And finally, Kanye West has decided that it is indeed time to ask him about NFTs.

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Tuesdays can be boring, but an ongoing Twitter drama is captivating the attention of many blockchain enthusiasts. Ask The Doctor, a Canadian medical questions and answers website, announced that it would be suing Shytoshi Kusama, volunteer project lead of meme token Shiba Inu (SHIB), for alleged libel and will attempt to uncover his personal identity in court. Kusama immediately fired back, alleging that “it is illegal [for Ask The Doctor] to take people’s money for a service it never provides.”

Tell your legal team that it is illegal to buy a verified account to use it to scam other people. Tell them it is illegal to take people’s money for a service you never provide.

And if you REALLY want to come and get me…

COME GET ME.

It’s almost time anyway… I’m ready https://t.co/jTnQydUWBt

— Shytoshi Kusama (@ShytoshiKusama) December 21, 2021

The heated exchange began when Kusama quoted a promotional SHIB tweet from Ask The Doctor the day prior, alleging, “You’re a scam account. Where are all your “doctor” tweets from tour account created in what 2009?” If the plot wasn’t already thick enough, Ask The Doctor was formerly a SHIB influencer. 

In a Dec. 1 tweet, the firm claimed to have added 31 billion SHIB ($1.5 million at the time) to its balance sheet. On Monday, Ask The Doctor then tweeted it had eliminated its SHIB tokens from its books. Twitter users allege that the firm has been heavily promoting SHIB tokens to retail investors over the past month.

You’re a scam account. Where are all your “doctor” tweets from tour account created in what 2009? Gtfoh. Go scam another token like you planned on doing with your first tweets. .@askthedr pic.twitter.com/ceFqL8KFYv

— Shytoshi Kusama (@ShytoshiKusama) December 21, 2021

Related: Shiba Inu gains over 30% in just 2 days as Kraken announces SHIB listing

At the time of publication, Ask The Doctor continues to escalate the conflict on the social media platform. In more recent tweets, the firm alleges that SHIB is “a scam,” “heading to zero,” “facing delisting,” and stating that, without evidence, “there is a rug pull coming.” Since the conflict began less than 24 hours ago, Ask the Doctor appears to have lost nearly 10,000 Twitter followers, with approximately 48,000 remaining. Although Ask The Doctor said it dumped its SHIB stake for business purposes, it didn’t explain why it would invest in what it believes to be a “scam” coin in the first place.