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I'm an author cited by the original bitcoin paper. I considered becoming an economist rather than a mathematician. Cryptocurrencies are a carbon-load environme

I'm an author cited by the original bitcoin paper. I considered becoming an economist rather than a mathematician. Cryptocurrencies are a carbon-load environmental crime. Figuring a way around this is the major unsolved problem in the field. Are you a vegetarian in the crypto-crowd? You'd be doing the planet a favor to start eating meat and abandoning cryptocurrencies. National currencies used to be backed by gold; now they're backed by the nation's resolve to support the currency. Cryptocurrencies are not Ponzi schemes; they can stabilize, while Ponzi schemes collapse. Cryptocurrencies however are backed entirely by convention. One could argue that nations are conventions, but they are bound together by a constellation of motives beyond their currency. Cryptocurrencies are isolated conventions. That is their appeal and their vulnerability. We are a cripplingly conventional species. Our ability to organize allowed us to scale past the Neanderthals. However, many of us don't trust convention enough to trust cryptocurrencies.

DethNinja 5y ago
So what you are saying is we should move to communism and let members of federal reserve control people like slaves by printing money and handing it to their buddies? How come as a business owner I never received a dime of those printed out money? Entire economy is a huge scam just to let richest people live like kings at the expense of billions of humans. At least bitcoin is a good alternative against institutional corruption going on at the highest levels of the government.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Not sure how it’s different. In both cases, the people who make the currency and their friends get rich, and the average Joe gets nothing.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It makes discussions more predictable and nastier, and we're trying for the opposites here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note these ones: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
tzs 5y ago
> National currencies used to be backed by gold; now they're backed by the nation's resolve to support the currency. Cryptocurrencies are not Ponzi schemes; they can stabilize, while Ponzi schemes collapse. Cryptocurrencies however are backed entirely by convention. One could argue that nations are conventions, but they are bound together by a constellation of motives beyond their currency. Cryptocurrencies are isolated conventions. That is their appeal and their vulnerability. That is why I object to the way it is common in cryptocurrency circles to refer to national currencies as "fiat". Before cryptocurrency, there was essentially a dichotomy: (1) Money that either is a commodity (e.g., gold, diamonds) or is backed by a commodity. This kind of money has intrinsic value aside from its use as money--in a post-apocalyptic collapsed civilization for instance you can still use your gold bars to smash in the skulls of people trying to steal your stash of food. (2) Money that is backed by agreement that it is money, and that has almost no intrinsic value. Generally this only worked on a large scale if someone big, like the government, agrees that it is money and encouraged others to do so such as by making this the only form of money acceptable for paying debts owed to the government (such as taxes) or for the government to use to pay debts. Until this century it wasn't really practical to have a large scale type #2 money for general use without it being backed by a government and so the term "fiat money" came to mean the whole of type #2. Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are type #2 but not government backed. By using the term "fiat" to refer to other type #2 money, it gives the impression that Bitcoin is not type #2. This can lead people into thinking Bitcoin is type #1. I've seen people invest in Bitcoin thinking that they are investing in a gold-like money because of this. The dichotomy needs to become a trichotomy: (1) commodity money, (2) government-backed fiat money, (3) non-government-backed fiat money.
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DethNinja 5y ago

So what you are saying is we should move to communism and let members of federal reserve control people like slaves by printing money and handing it to their buddies? How come as a business owner I never received a dime of those printed out money? Entire economy is a huge scam just to let richest people live like kings at the expense of billions of humans. At least bitcoin is a good alternative against institutional corruption going on at the highest levels of the government.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Not sure how it’s different. In both cases, the people who make the currency and their friends get rich, and the average Joe gets nothing.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It makes discussions more predictable and nastier, and we're trying for the opposites here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note these ones: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

tzs 5y ago

> National currencies used to be backed by gold; now they're backed by the nation's resolve to support the currency. Cryptocurrencies are not Ponzi schemes; they can stabilize, while Ponzi schemes collapse. Cryptocurrencies however are backed entirely by convention. One could argue that nations are conventions, but they are bound together by a constellation of motives beyond their currency. Cryptocurrencies are isolated conventions. That is their appeal and their vulnerability. That is why I object to the way it is common in cryptocurrency circles to refer to national currencies as "fiat". Before cryptocurrency, there was essentially a dichotomy: (1) Money that either is a commodity (e.g., gold, diamonds) or is backed by a commodity. This kind of money has intrinsic value aside from its use as money--in a post-apocalyptic collapsed civilization for instance you can still use your gold bars to smash in the skulls of people trying to steal your stash of food. (2) Money that is backed by agreement that it is money, and that has almost no intrinsic value. Generally this only worked on a large scale if someone big, like the government, agrees that it is money and encouraged others to do so such as by making this the only form of money acceptable for paying debts owed to the government (such as taxes) or for the government to use to pay debts. Until this century it wasn't really practical to have a large scale type #2 money for general use without it being backed by a government and so the term "fiat money" came to mean the whole of type #2. Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are type #2 but not government backed. By using the term "fiat" to refer to other type #2 money, it gives the impression that Bitcoin is not type #2. This can lead people into thinking Bitcoin is type #1. I've seen people invest in Bitcoin thinking that they are investing in a gold-like money because of this. The dichotomy needs to become a trichotomy: (1) commodity money, (2) government-backed fiat money, (3) non-government-backed fiat money.

deleted 5y ago

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