| I have some reservations about Bitcoin but I understand it a heck of a lot better than the reporter interviewed here. That was painful to listen to and a stark reminder of Gell-Mann amnesia. The UK's FCA took the right step in banning consumer investments in crypto derivative products, which isn't remotely the same thing as purchasing the underlying assets without leverage. There's plenty more to nitpick about the simplifications he uses losing fundamental aspects that undergird the system and make it work. It's fascinating to watch naïve journalists and the HN crowd wring their hands year after year about a new technology that enables a cohort of low-trusting individuals and institutions to defect in a game theoretic sense from the unwritten rules of Western society and economics. A possibility that simply didn't exist before, and which Bitcoin first enabled. My gut sense is that if people had a wider world view, grew up with and truly knew people from across the spectrum of humanity, and perhaps were keener students of world history they would hold an appreciation and fascination of Bitcoin rather than reflexively ostriching at new technology that questions the status quo. You don't have to love it or like it, but unemotional fascination is warranted. At any rate I desperately wish the level of discourse on Bitcoin was higher here. It's embarrassing to read HN threads on Bitcoin, arguably fremdscham inducing. |