<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 2:06 AM Marc Sunet <<a href="mailto:msunet@shellblade.net">msunet@shellblade.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>So what specifically is immoral about cryptocurrencies in your
opinion?</p>
<p>Also, throwing grarpamp in the Trump sack was a bit out of the
blue? He had some good points if you just ignore the writing
style. Some groups are ringing bells about cashless societies, for
example (last link in Spanish):</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable</a></p>
<p><a href="https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/" target="_blank">https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/</a></p>
<p>This mailing list always turns hostile for no reason. Since you
are experts, why not educate people when somebody raises a point
here?</p></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Well first off, this is not the only list on which grarpamp has shared his opinions. I have found him to be long on accusatory language (everyone I don't like is a statist) and short on facts. He stopped posting on the Cryptography list after being repeatedly schooled for stating that professional cryptographers with decades of experience who have been discussing BTC since it was launched there need to 'educate themselves'. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I find accusing people of being statists, pro government, etc. as a bullying tactic. That is all grarpamp has and its all Trump ever had. Use Trumper tactics, get thrown in the Trump sack, seems fair to me. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">The aggressive gaslighting and coinsplaining is of course entirely self interested. Anyone who holds BitCoin is by definition a person with a vested interest in finding a greater fool to sell their cowrie shells onto. That is the second reason to throw them in the Trump sack - they are con artists trying to put your money in their pockets. I don't think that is moral behavior.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I am a big fan of the cashless society, I have spent a large part of my 29 year career in designing and deploying payment systems. I have been trying to develop a micropayments scheme for buying Web content since 1992. None of the current ledger bases schemes is remotely close to serving that need with the possible exception of Dogecoin which can't meet that need at scale. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">And here we get to the fact that the only thing we have learned about BitCoin after 12 years of deployment experience is that it is impossible to change the deployed infrastructure. We are long past the early days of criminal-currencies. What you see now is all you are going to get. Repeated attempts to change the infrastructure have failed. So the fact that it costs $22 to make a BTC transaction today is really significant. That is vastly more than any other payment system except SWIFT. And if you factor in the cost of converting hard currency into and out of BTC, the cost of using BTC to make an uninsured, irrevocable transfer is five to ten times the cost of an insured transfer via SWIFT and vastly more than other means.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">So this is a ruinously expensive payment system that cannot be improved after deployment. Does it provide any advantages? Not unless you want to buy drugs, images of children being raped, collect ransomware extortion or evade exchange controls. The only selling point of BTC as a payment scheme is that it enables criminal behavior. And with the exception of evading exchange controls, the criminal behavior in question is despicable.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">BTC is not decentralized, that is pure propaganda. While the ledger itself is decentralized in theory, Network effects have led to the creation of mining cartels and the practical difficulties of managing crypto and the cost of transactions have led to most of the float being held on exchanges.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">None of the criminality is acknowledged by BitCoin boosters. They poo-poo the fact that BTC accounts for a negligible fraction of global commerce and the majority of major financial frauds. One-coin Quadrifinex, Mount Gox, The most profitable way to run an exchange is to run it as a Ponzi scheme.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Nor is the fact that proof of waste is a despicable principle on which to assign value. The criminal-currency world creates no value. They consume more electricity than the entire nation of Argentina. They can't argue with that fact so they instead pretend that the miners are using renewable energy, a flat out lie. Who else lies on that scale? Well Trump of course, back in the Trump sack again. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">There is much more that could be said on the immorality of criminal currencies but the verdict is clear: These are despicable instruments being peddled by despicable, greedy people who cloak their immorality with fine talk of 'freedom' and vicious personal attacks on anyone who dares tell the truth. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div></div></div></div></div>