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by TeMPOraL 1879 days ago
Thank you.

I do think there is a lot of value in cryptocurrency research. The theoretical insights gained into ways of provably ensuring consensus in an untrusted environment, or tamper-proofing information, are already useful.

But that could all be done in a research setting (as it mostly already is) - we don't need every piece of such research to be immediately deployed in the form of a get rich quick scheme. So I'd strongly support an official, government-backed moratorium on the use of all cryptocurrencies, until researchers figure out a way to make one that isn't an exponentially growing, insatiable power sink.

We can test out the research incrementally in form of systems that don't pay people to grow chains. Like some of the project ideas I've seen thrown around big, non-financial companies - e.g. making it easier to ensure supply chain integrity. While in general I'm strongly suspicious of anything that even mentions "blockchain", some of these ideas don't look that stupid (but then, I'm not a domain expert in these areas, so the blockchain-backed solutions may all just be hot air).