To be fair to Mr. Taleb, he does mention the technology argument at the very end of his paper in the conclusion - although his counterargument is very much a ha

To be fair to Mr. Taleb, he does mention the technology argument at the very end of his paper in the conclusion - although his counterargument is very much a handwave. "The customary standard argument is that "bitcoin has its flaws but we are getting a great technology; we will do wonders with the blockchain". No, there is no evidence that we are getting a great technology — unless "great technology" doesn’t mean "useful". And at the time of writing —in spite of all the fanfare — we have done still close to nothing with the blockchain. So we close with a Damascus joke. One vendor was selling the exact same variety of cucumbers at two different prices. "Why is this one twice the price?", the merchant was asked. "They came on higher quality mules" was the answer. We only judge a technology by how it solves problems, not by what technological attributes it has."