| > the foundation for a radically new type of financial system A radically terrible one. The financial system should not waste gigantic amounts of power on maintaining security under trustlessness. Unlike libertarians' ridiculous dreams, actual human society requires trust. > This transaction was transmitted and processed instantly, for $0 in fees No way it's been $0. And it's even worse now. Confirmations are slow, miner fees are large, exchanges have fees, you can quickly lose on exchange rate… (Mining rewards are mentioned later in the article… but not where they come from) > As the number of independent mining groups increases and becomes more geographically dispersed Still a few large pools dominate the network https://blockchain.info/pools > [cash] also means that they could be robbed of their entire life savings on any given day There's a whole subreddit, /r/Buttcoin, full of stories of bitcoiners losing their life savings on any given day. Scams, hacks, bugs, private key losses, scams, scams, and even more scams. |