Very fair points, thank you. And the history lesson was a good one too.
I would not want to pretend I have the technical expertise to question
anything you said, and I have the same opinion on the morality side of
things. That being said, cybersecurity is more expensive than spreading
FUD like you said in the previous email, and it's clear that that is
what is keeping corporate media busy these days. Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies enable/boost schemes like ransomware for sure, but USD,
and currencies before it, have also been an enabler of crime for the
longest. It's not like any of the crimes you mentioned are new. Yet the
corporate media, of course, chooses to mostly ignore that fact, because
they have a political agenda to further. So my criticism (and I think
part of grarpamp's email) is that the media is only looking at the side
of the coin that best serves its interests, not educating/informing
people (I guess that would be a first.)
You also ask "who lies on that scale?" and seem to be very fixated with
Trump. But US governments before and after him have and will continue to
do so. I don't think this point necessitates much explanation? For what
it's worth, Biden so far hasn't done much to protect journalists and
undo Trump's policies in that regard. Those are precisely the people who
can uncover truth:
https://freedom.press/news/biden-defends-trump-surveillance-of-reporters/
https://freedom.press/news/biden-justice-end-assange-prosecution-coalition-letter/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/02/amnesty-international-joins-civil-liberties-groups-to-ask-biden-to-drop-case-against-julian-assange/
And for what it's worth, Ethereum is switching to PoS soon. That should
at least address their energy waste?
https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/05/18/country-power-no-more/
On 5/23/21 10:41 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 2:06 AM Marc Sunet <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
So what specifically is immoral about cryptocurrencies in your
opinion?
Also, throwing grarpamp in the Trump sack was a bit out of the
blue? He had some good points if you just ignore the writing
style. Some groups are ringing bells about cashless societies, for
example (last link in Spanish):
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable
<https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable>
https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/
<https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/>
This mailing list always turns hostile for no reason. Since you
are experts, why not educate people when somebody raises a point here?
Well first off, this is not the only list on which grarpamp has shared
his opinions. I have found him to be long on accusatory language
(everyone I don't like is a statist) and short on facts. He stopped
posting on the Cryptography list after being repeatedly schooled for
stating that professional cryptographers with decades of experience
who have been discussing BTC since it was launched there need to
'educate themselves'.
I find accusing people of being statists, pro government, etc. as a
bullying tactic. That is all grarpamp has and its all Trump ever had.
Use Trumper tactics, get thrown in the Trump sack, seems fair to me.
The aggressive gaslighting and coinsplaining is of course entirely
self interested. Anyone who holds BitCoin is by definition a person
with a vested interest in finding a greater fool to sell their cowrie
shells onto. That is the second reason to throw them in the Trump sack
- they are con artists trying to put your money in their pockets. I
don't think that is moral behavior.
I am a big fan of the cashless society, I have spent a large part of
my 29 year career in designing and deploying payment systems. I have
been trying to develop a micropayments scheme for buying Web content
since 1992. None of the current ledger bases schemes is remotely close
to serving that need with the possible exception of Dogecoin which
can't meet that need at scale.
And here we get to the fact that the only thing we have learned about
BitCoin after 12 years of deployment experience is that it is
impossible to change the deployed infrastructure. We are long past the
early days of criminal-currencies. What you see now is all you are
going to get. Repeated attempts to change the infrastructure have
failed. So the fact that it costs $22 to make a BTC transaction today
is really significant. That is vastly more than any other payment
system except SWIFT. And if you factor in the cost of converting hard
currency into and out of BTC, the cost of using BTC to make an
uninsured, irrevocable transfer is five to ten times the cost of an
insured transfer via SWIFT and vastly more than other means.
So this is a ruinously expensive payment system that cannot be
improved after deployment. Does it provide any advantages? Not unless
you want to buy drugs, images of children being raped, collect
ransomware extortion or evade exchange controls. The only selling
point of BTC as a payment scheme is that it enables criminal behavior.
And with the exception of evading exchange controls, the criminal
behavior in question is despicable.
BTC is not decentralized, that is pure propaganda. While the ledger
itself is decentralized in theory, Network effects have led to the
creation of mining cartels and the practical difficulties of managing
crypto and the cost of transactions have led to most of the float
being held on exchanges.
None of the criminality is acknowledged by BitCoin boosters. They
poo-poo the fact that BTC accounts for a negligible fraction of global
commerce and the majority of major financial frauds. One-coin
Quadrifinex, Mount Gox, The most profitable way to run an exchange is
to run it as a Ponzi scheme.
Nor is the fact that proof of waste is a despicable principle on which
to assign value. The criminal-currency world creates no value. They
consume more electricity than the entire nation of Argentina. They
can't argue with that fact so they instead pretend that the miners are
using renewable energy, a flat out lie. Who else lies on that scale?
Well Trump of course, back in the Trump sack again.
There is much more that could be said on the immorality of criminal
currencies but the verdict is clear: These are despicable instruments
being peddled by despicable, greedy people who cloak their immorality
with fine talk of 'freedom' and vicious personal attacks on anyone who
dares tell the truth.
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