[dumbfoundded]

If you actually read the article, most of the scams of all types start on social media. Why is it so easy for a scammer to talk to my nephew on the same places he talks to his friends? If you look at actually consumer fraud (1) according to the FTC, crypto isn't even mentioned.

The abundance of crypto hate is confusing to me as one hand HN believes it's a pointless & worthless technology but also somehow this unstoppable force giving criminals limitless power to burn all the trees and rob the youth.

(1) https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2021/02/top-frauds-2020

[user-the-name]

Why do you think that is some kind of contradiction? It is technology that is largely useless for legitimate projects, as other solutions are always better and less inefficient. And it is inefficient, because it does use 0.5% of the electricity of the entire planet, which is not something people imagine, it is very real. The only benefits it has are mainly useful for criminal purposes, thus it does help criminals.

All of this is consistent, factual, and a huge problem.

[dumbfoundded]

Okay, that's a change in the narrative. It's not useless. It's only useless if you're not a criminal. But that's sort of backwards. Technology is just a tool. It doesn't decide how it's going to be used. Humans decide the ways in which tools are used, adding morality & legality.

What about this tool makes it criminal by nature?

It's censorship-resistant, private (if you want it to be), and very inefficient energy-wise. It's the logical extension of encryption. Encryption is also useful for criminal purposes and internet crime wouldn't really exist without it. Privacy != criminal. Also, do you know how much energy it would save if nothing was encrypted?

Every government in the history of the world has eventually collapsed causing devastation for its people. Money printers go wild. Corruption everywhere. People cannot afford basic necessities. If we can figure out a money that cannot be messed with, maybe that's not such a bad thing.