Wow, so crypto currency has wildly fluctuating values AND transactions take 45 minutes AND every dollar doubles my lifetime carbon footprint AND there’s no recourse if I get robbed? Boy do I feel dumb for relying on money. https://t.co/r8oPTP0w2O
— Reinstated Doorknob Licker (@agraybee) May 23, 2021
Ah, the excitement of life on the edge!
However, comes a point in every frontier saga where the plucky scavengers at the outskirts of empire become an annoyance to the oligarchs. There’s a romantic American tendency to assume that the rebels (a) have Right on their sides, and therefore (b) inevitably triumph. Partially because the successful would-be crime lords don’t advertise, and partially because their victims often don’t, either.
In that light, I found this thread by Maciej Ceglowski, aka Pinboard on Twitter, interesting:
Thank you to @cnbctechcheck for having me on! I realize that "cryptocurrency is a gambling token and pyramid scheme" is a simplistic argument, but… pyramid schemes are not that complicated, and I think it's useful to say it on TV for all those intimidated by blockchain woo
— Pinboard (@Pinboard) May 20, 2021
Let me tweet a little longer for people who want more than a sound bite. By its own criteria, crypto was supposed to be a decentralized currency that no one person or government could control, a safe store of value compared to fiat money. By all those criteria it has failed.
Instead of having no points of control, cryptocurrency is run like middle school—everything is determined by what the popular kids like or don’t like that day. If Elon Musk has a double espresso this morning, the price will go up, if he tweets after bong rips, it will go down.
The decentralized part has failed entirely. Cryptocurrencies are mined by massive operations that concentrate power to such an extent that the raison d’être of the blockchain —no one participant is supposed to be able to monkey with it—gets really shaky.
The promise of crypto as a stable store of value against inconstant fiat currencies has failed, too. The volatility on all time scales is extraordinary, and it’s coupled with illiquidity, particularly in a crisis. If there’s a bank run on crypto, good luck selling!…
The one area where crypto has been genuinely disruptive and innovative is in the field of ransomware. There’s an entire industry around it now that could not exist without an underregulated way of moving large sums of money. That’s the niche crypto fills…
There’s a final, institutional point around the cryptocurrency bubble. My point of view is not original in any way, huge numbers of tech people who understand the blockchain share it. But the investor class is wedded to cryptocurrency and will not brook criticism of it.
I made gentle fun of Bitcoin last week and got myself publicly called an idiot and blocked by one of the most prominent investors in the valley. A lot of people in this industry can’t afford to antagonize deep pockets, and you won’t hear their honest opinion publicly expressed.
But don’t mistake this tacit silence for affirmation that this technology is useful. Nobody tells Pharaoh that pyramid building is a poor use of everyone’s time unless they live safely outside the kingdom.
Link to my CNBC segment for those who asked to see: https://t.co/xTg5gjIKVd
— Pinboard (@Pinboard) May 20, 2021
TBF it's also a fantastic way to launder money.
— Nied (@B_Nied) May 20, 2021
Bitcoin has basically been a speedrun of teaching libertarians how we got all our banking regulations
— yr himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) May 19, 2021
in engineering you talk about how every safety regulation being written in blood first and then inked over, same is true for things that act like banks
— yr himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) May 19, 2021
#BittenCoin Open Thread: <em>Scammed by the Magic Bean Salesmen!</em>Post + Comments (80)