Bram Cohen famously called Bitcoin "digital Goldbuggism." Since then he's given talks on cryptocurrency and found bugs in Bitcoin's code that were copied by mos

Bram Cohen famously called Bitcoin "digital Goldbuggism." Since then he's given talks on cryptocurrency and found bugs in Bitcoin's code that were copied by most of the alt-coins. Now he's even got his own blockchain cryptocurrency called "Chia" that is based on "proof of space-time." There are numerous devs who are devoted FOSS zealots and randomly dive into the idea of using blockchain to fund their work. Blockchain seduces hackers the same way Walmart seduced small towns to give it every incentive conceivable to move in and suck up the local economy. "Et Tu, Signal?" simply isn't a grown-up argument. If it were, the vast majority of Hacker news would have quit adtech and already figured out fast homomorphic encryption by now. If you want to help, figure out what social problem hackers think they are routing around with blockchain. Then explain sensible approaches to those social problems in a way hackers can understand. If Richard Stallman's endless world tour of his boring-ass one-man-play is any indication, it is possible to convince hackers of ethical arguments that have implications outside of software. But you've got your work cut out for you. (Also notice-- the least convincing part of his play comes when he tries to imply you're a bad person betraying a cause if you write proprietary software.) Edit: clarification