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Cryptocurrencies Aren't 'Crypto'
- coralreef 9y agoWho cares. Same words are used in different contexts with different meanings.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoThe basic idea is that cryptographic functions rather than state-sanctioned violence are used to secure the funds.
- macawfish 9y agosure they are, they're very much applications of cryptography, or "crypto". I think this article really means to say that "crypto" isn't just "cryptocurrencies". btw, a lot of what's called "cryptocurrency" is actually more interesting and complex than just money/currency. some of these applications are focused on gathering and safely encoding consensus from groups of people, using cryptography. that's very crypto if you ask me!
- sova 9y ago“Most cryptocurrency barely has anything to do with serious cryptography,” Matthew Green, a renowned computer scientist who studies cryptography, told me via email. “Aside from the trivial use of digital signatures and hash functions, it’s a stupid name.” Trivial use upon which the whole fabric of secure communications is built. Go read a book.
- supermatt 9y agoAre you suggesting we start calling secure comms crypto as well?
- sova 9y agoSecure Comms is already a short name that describes how they work. I fail to see why Crypto is a bad abbreviation for commodities that are based on cryptographically signed and cryptographically verified blocks. Just because the parthenon only uses a small amount of mathematics doesn't mean it's "not a geometric structure" -- it's in math books. I feel like Vice could be picking a better fight than "let's split hairs on jargon" especially when the word crypto is not going anywhere. How about this: Vice news isn't really "Vice"