<story><title>Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today&apos;s capitalist system</title><url>https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1415353989323841537</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MereInterest</author><text>Not the OP, but this has been my experience as well.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;This will decentralize ownership of a currency.&amp;quot;  Nope, it will move from having government control to having oligarchic control.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;A strict limit on the number of tokens means that the value isn&amp;#x27;t stolen away by inflation.&amp;quot;  If the supply of currency doesn&amp;#x27;t keep up with demand, the price skyrockets.  This discourages investment, since you get more value just by holding onto it.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;These are anonymous transactions.&amp;quot;  On a public ledger, the most you can do is pseudonymous.  Just like TOR, you only need to monitor the exit nodes to map pseudonyms to actual people.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;Irreversible transactions are a feature.&amp;quot;  They&amp;#x27;re definitely a bug.  If I buy a TV with a credit card, and receive a box of rocks, I can do a chargeback.  If I make that same transaction with cryptocurrencies, I&amp;#x27;m SOL unless a fraudster suddenly decides that they really want to make good on it.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t need banks anymore.&amp;quot; is absolutely hilarious when coupled with &amp;quot;Off-chain transactions solve the throughput limits.&amp;quot;  If there&amp;#x27;s an organization that holds money in their on-chain accounts on behalf of others, manages a balance of those off-chain accounts backed by deposited assets, and facilitates transactions between those off-chain accounts, that sure sounds like a bank to me.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;Sure, there&amp;#x27;s a high electricity cost, but compare it to the entire banking system that it&amp;#x27;s replacing and it&amp;#x27;s minimal.&amp;quot;  This one manages to be both inaccurate and false.  A proof-of-work cryptocurrency must at all times expend energy proportional to the value represented by the cryptocurrency, or else be vulnerable to attack.  As such, the more it expands in usage, the more much be expended to secure it.  We&amp;#x27;ve seen how Bitcoin alone now dwarfs entire countries, let alone the banking sector.  And even if the statement were true, it is misleading to compare a payment processor to the entire banking sector.  Even if the entire banking sector ran on cryptocurrency, you&amp;#x27;d still need somebody to underwrite loans and mortgages.&lt;p&gt;Overall, every single time I&amp;#x27;ve looked into cryptocurrency over the past decade, I came away thinking that it&amp;#x27;s a really neat idea, but there are so, so many downsides.  In practice, cryptocurrencies are worse than Ponzi schemes, because at least Ponzi schemes only screw over people who invest in them.  Cryptocurrencies also screw over anybody who wants to use GPUs for productivity&amp;#x2F;entertainment, anybody who has higher electricity costs due to increased demand, and anybody downwind of (or on the same warming planet as) coal power plants being reactivated to run transaction validation.&lt;p&gt;Bitcoin delenda est.</text></item><item><author>danuker</author><text>&amp;gt; arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true.&lt;p&gt;Care to elaborate?&lt;p&gt;What exactly are the arguments that are wrong?</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s just right. I can&amp;#x27;t object to using cryptocurrencies as a financial instrument to make money but all the arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JMTQp8lwXL</author><text>&amp;gt; * &amp;quot;This will decentralize ownership of a currency.&amp;quot; Nope, it will move from having government control to having oligarchic control.&lt;p&gt;In most places where oligarchs exist, they largely control their government. That is, they are one in the same, whether this is a formal or informal arrangement. Though they may be different subsets of oligarchs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today&apos;s capitalist system</title><url>https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1415353989323841537</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MereInterest</author><text>Not the OP, but this has been my experience as well.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;This will decentralize ownership of a currency.&amp;quot;  Nope, it will move from having government control to having oligarchic control.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;A strict limit on the number of tokens means that the value isn&amp;#x27;t stolen away by inflation.&amp;quot;  If the supply of currency doesn&amp;#x27;t keep up with demand, the price skyrockets.  This discourages investment, since you get more value just by holding onto it.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;These are anonymous transactions.&amp;quot;  On a public ledger, the most you can do is pseudonymous.  Just like TOR, you only need to monitor the exit nodes to map pseudonyms to actual people.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;Irreversible transactions are a feature.&amp;quot;  They&amp;#x27;re definitely a bug.  If I buy a TV with a credit card, and receive a box of rocks, I can do a chargeback.  If I make that same transaction with cryptocurrencies, I&amp;#x27;m SOL unless a fraudster suddenly decides that they really want to make good on it.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t need banks anymore.&amp;quot; is absolutely hilarious when coupled with &amp;quot;Off-chain transactions solve the throughput limits.&amp;quot;  If there&amp;#x27;s an organization that holds money in their on-chain accounts on behalf of others, manages a balance of those off-chain accounts backed by deposited assets, and facilitates transactions between those off-chain accounts, that sure sounds like a bank to me.&lt;p&gt;* &amp;quot;Sure, there&amp;#x27;s a high electricity cost, but compare it to the entire banking system that it&amp;#x27;s replacing and it&amp;#x27;s minimal.&amp;quot;  This one manages to be both inaccurate and false.  A proof-of-work cryptocurrency must at all times expend energy proportional to the value represented by the cryptocurrency, or else be vulnerable to attack.  As such, the more it expands in usage, the more much be expended to secure it.  We&amp;#x27;ve seen how Bitcoin alone now dwarfs entire countries, let alone the banking sector.  And even if the statement were true, it is misleading to compare a payment processor to the entire banking sector.  Even if the entire banking sector ran on cryptocurrency, you&amp;#x27;d still need somebody to underwrite loans and mortgages.&lt;p&gt;Overall, every single time I&amp;#x27;ve looked into cryptocurrency over the past decade, I came away thinking that it&amp;#x27;s a really neat idea, but there are so, so many downsides.  In practice, cryptocurrencies are worse than Ponzi schemes, because at least Ponzi schemes only screw over people who invest in them.  Cryptocurrencies also screw over anybody who wants to use GPUs for productivity&amp;#x2F;entertainment, anybody who has higher electricity costs due to increased demand, and anybody downwind of (or on the same warming planet as) coal power plants being reactivated to run transaction validation.&lt;p&gt;Bitcoin delenda est.</text></item><item><author>danuker</author><text>&amp;gt; arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true.&lt;p&gt;Care to elaborate?&lt;p&gt;What exactly are the arguments that are wrong?</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s just right. I can&amp;#x27;t object to using cryptocurrencies as a financial instrument to make money but all the arguments about technology, economics or freedom are not just wrong but very often the exact opposite is true.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>helsinkiandrew</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Irreversible transactions are a feature.&amp;quot; They&amp;#x27;re definitely a bug. If I buy a TV with a credit card, and receive a box of rocks, I can do a chargeback. If I make that same transaction with cryptocurrencies, I&amp;#x27;m SOL unless a fraudster suddenly decides that they really want to make good on it.&lt;p&gt;Agree with all you said apart from this - I&amp;#x27;m not sure how reversible transactions would help you get money back from a fraudster.  With &amp;#x27;legacy&amp;#x27; money its eBay&amp;#x2F;Amazon or your credit card company (or the laws that they operate under), the level above the currency&amp;#x2F;transaction that gets you your money back.  I imagine if Amazon accepted bitcoin they would also provide refunds.&lt;p&gt;The legal protection provided by using a credit card (in the UK&amp;#x2F;EU anyway) is by far the biggest reason not to use anything else for transactions on the internet.</text></comment>