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I also think cryptocurrency is hyped & bubble. But the author is also wrong here by calling "only for criminals". Cryptocurrency were supposed to mimic decentr

I also think cryptocurrency is hyped & bubble. But the author is also wrong here by calling "only for criminals". Cryptocurrency were supposed to mimic decentralized cash but there are still some problem that needs fixing. > Imagine, for example, a world where you're out at a restaurant, or something, and you accidentally drop your keys. Someone else picks them up off the floor, only instead of handing them back to you, they now legally own your house and car. You call the police, but they say they have no power to insist this person gives you back your property. It's their property now, because possession is ownership, access is authorization. Cryptocurrency should mimic cash, they don't have any intrinsic value just like cash. So correct example would be if you drop cash in restaurant not keys of your car. Just like cash whoever picks it up is there new owner & police can't do anything about it except for locking him in jail. > In October 2017, JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon called the idea a fraud and said he would fire any employee trading Bitcoin for being "stupid". Ofcourse he will say that, JP Morgan creates money out of thin air by using fractional reserve, just like cryptocurrency. So basically bitcoin is taking away there business. Author also misses important use like voting where we want record to be public, accountable & certifiable. And about the criminal part. For criminals, CASH IS STILL THE KING.

only_human 4y ago
>Just like cash whoever picks it up is there new owner & police can't do anything about it except for locking him in jail. I hear people saying this, the problem with this thinking is that there is no actual reason for a digital payment system to be like that. It's actually one of the main drawbacks of cash and one of the major reasons not to use it. Intentionally designing a system this way doesn't improve it, it causes it to have the disadvantages of physical money (easily and irreversibly stolen) as well as the disadvantages of electronic money (easily hacked by anyone on the planet). I argue this combination makes it uniquely suitable for cyber crime, and nothing else. Nobody actually wants this combination of properties in a legitimate payment system. And I should also state that these properties are policy choices and not really related to anything technical about Bitcoin or blockchains. Banks can also just refuse to give your money back if you get hacked, but doing so would obviously be very bad and make their customers angry. It makes no sense to condone this behavior in crypto. >Ofcourse he will say that, JP Morgan creates money out of thin air by using fractional reserve, just like cryptocurrency. So basically bitcoin is taking away there business. This doesn't make sense, you're going into conspiracy theories here. Yeah he said that but he also said numerous times he would take customers' money if they wanted to trade crypto, and that's exactly what he does. >Author also misses important use like voting where we want record to be public, accountable & certifiable. What you need there is laws, not blockchains. Electronic voting doesn't help with that and just gets in the way. Every blockchain voting system I've seen has been a total failure that's less secure and less accountable than simple paper ballots. On a more fundamental level, you can't have a voting system for ordinary people that requires them to understand how complicated microchips and algorithms and radio signals and network topologies work in order to trust the system. It's just not going to fly. >And about the criminal part. For criminals, CASH IS STILL THE KING. For small transactions, yes. Chalk up another failure for crypto. For large criminal transactions like ransomware and sanctions evasion, it's still crypto all the way. But this also is not for any technical reason, it's because of various policy choices to avoid applying any kind of increased scrutiny to large transactions, and also because of crypto enthusiasts having some kind of weird fixation with helping thugs and autocrats: https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-075956706.html https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-0759...

only_human 4y ago

>Just like cash whoever picks it up is there new owner & police can't do anything about it except for locking him in jail. I hear people saying this, the problem with this thinking is that there is no actual reason for a digital payment system to be like that. It's actually one of the main drawbacks of cash and one of the major reasons not to use it. Intentionally designing a system this way doesn't improve it, it causes it to have the disadvantages of physical money (easily and irreversibly stolen) as well as the disadvantages of electronic money (easily hacked by anyone on the planet). I argue this combination makes it uniquely suitable for cyber crime, and nothing else. Nobody actually wants this combination of properties in a legitimate payment system. And I should also state that these properties are policy choices and not really related to anything technical about Bitcoin or blockchains. Banks can also just refuse to give your money back if you get hacked, but doing so would obviously be very bad and make their customers angry. It makes no sense to condone this behavior in crypto. >Ofcourse he will say that, JP Morgan creates money out of thin air by using fractional reserve, just like cryptocurrency. So basically bitcoin is taking away there business. This doesn't make sense, you're going into conspiracy theories here. Yeah he said that but he also said numerous times he would take customers' money if they wanted to trade crypto, and that's exactly what he does. >Author also misses important use like voting where we want record to be public, accountable & certifiable. What you need there is laws, not blockchains. Electronic voting doesn't help with that and just gets in the way. Every blockchain voting system I've seen has been a total failure that's less secure and less accountable than simple paper ballots. On a more fundamental level, you can't have a voting system for ordinary people that requires them to understand how complicated microchips and algorithms and radio signals and network topologies work in order to trust the system. It's just not going to fly. >And about the criminal part. For criminals, CASH IS STILL THE KING. For small transactions, yes. Chalk up another failure for crypto. For large criminal transactions like ransomware and sanctions evasion, it's still crypto all the way. But this also is not for any technical reason, it's because of various policy choices to avoid applying any kind of increased scrutiny to large transactions, and also because of crypto enthusiasts having some kind of weird fixation with helping thugs and autocrats: https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-075956706.html https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-0759...