[lwansbrough]

Nothing turns HN comments more bitter and unthinking faster than the topic of Bitcoin, especially its insane energy use.

Pitching Bitcoin: "Imagine a currency... that doesn't materially change the status quo (and taken to the end game more-greatly enriches fewer people), is somewhere between 100,000x and 1,000,000x less energy efficient, slower to transact, more volatile, 100% traceable, easier to scam, harder to teach to laymen, causes supply shortages to other markets, whose production is owned in majority by our greatest geopolitical adversary, is treated as an asset and incentivizes saving over spending, and will continue to waste more and more energy for at least the next 100 years."

Absolutely insane invention, and the fact that people think this is worth money only tells you that they've bought in.

Bitcoin proponents like to pretend it circumvents government interference, as if Bitcoin exists in a vacuum. In reality, the moment the government does a double take of Bitcoin, the market blinks. Everybody knows the pitch of decentralization is just a gimmick, even if they aren't willing to admit it.

[coralreef]

I would pitch it as a global, provably immutable database network where anyone can participate pseudonymously, where state control is difficult and thus censorship is difficult.

Bitcoin is actually just a database. It makes no promise about money or value. But it turns out that those qualities mentioned above are also important qualities for good money, and so humans assigned value to the system.

If you don't think the network is useful, don't use it. Short it. But don't act as if there are no tradeoffs between security and convenience. Don't act as if negative interest rates and infinite quantitative easing are normal things.

[lwansbrough]

> I would pitch it as a global, provably immutable network where anyone can participate pseudonymously, where state control is difficult and thus censorship is difficult.

The network is completely traceable. Anti-censorship is worthless without protection. I do something on the network my government doesn't like, they track me down and put me in jail. Great system. The failings of political systems are not overcome by changing the financial instruments used.

[coralreef]

The network is completely traceable.

It is traceable when the appropriate dataset is overlaid on top of it. Ie. IP addresses, known public keys associated with people/organizations. Within itself, you don't know who is sending or receiving.

Anti-censorship is worthless without protection.

Protection comes from anonymity/pseudonymity.

I do something on the network my government doesn't like, they track me down and put me in jail. Great system.

Yes, its almost as if you need to take steps and precautions to ensure that your government cannot track you down. You know where its even easier to trace your transactions and freeze your assets? Your bank account.

[lwansbrough]

> It is traceable when the appropriate dataset is overlaid on top of it. Ie. IP addresses, known public keys associated with people/organizations. Within itself, you don't know who is sending or receiving.

You mean the kind of information governments readily have access to?

> Yes, its almost as if you need to take steps and precautions to ensure that your government cannot track you down. You know where its even easier to trace your transactions and freeze your assets? Your bank account.

Ever heard of cash?

[coralreef]

You mean the kind of information governments readily have access to?

Ever hear of a VPN, Tor, or BitTorrent? How's the war on movie piracy going?

Ever heard of cash?

Yeah, I've also heard of civil forfeiture where the police take your money without cause or ability for remediation.

I've heard of authoritarian governments who scan your face and keep your social credit score, and will prevent you from making transactions and opening accounts, making your life much more difficult.

I've heard of a house fire, and cash burns pretty easily if I recall, even if its the new stuff made of plastic polymers.

I've heard of counterfeit bills too.

[sgammon]

the FBI can, and has, seized bitcoin. the FBI cannot, and has never been able to, seize cash they cannot find or otherwise touch with their hands.

[0-_-0]

Cash is easy to trace

[ajay-b]

I’ve made quite a bit of money on cryptocurrency. For some of us, perhaps many of us, it’s been a net positive.

How much did you lose?

[lwansbrough]

I haven’t lost any, technically I exited at 10,000% gains (ETH $10 -> $1000) (not that much money all in all.) Since then I’ve seen the damage it’s doing to markets, environments, brains, etc. and realized it’s really just a net negative. Not everything that earns you money is good or worth it.

[0-_-0]

What you have made someone else has lost

[agumonkey]

on a metalevel view its also interesting, because the mob/mass effect is getting so huge that it's kinda becoming its own thing, absurd or not

it's also one of hottest superstition social study ever.

[UWillOwnNothing]

Blockchain presents, for the first time in history, the ability to coordinate humans at scale without a central authority.

[lwansbrough]

There is no central authority of humanity, just deeply embedded factions with long histories. If you don't think the same is happening to Bitcoin just look who the biggest players are in crypto (hint: it isn't decentralized individuals.) Bitcoin offers nothing new from the perspective of game theory, and only seeks to offload consensus to software which fails against hard power anyway.

[wmf]

Blockchain gives that ability, but Bitcoin isn't a good blockchain.

[myWindoonn]

Over three millennia ago, humans had the Bronze Age, which included two global markets (copper and tin) and had international trade without any central authority setting the prices.