[liberationtech] The bitcoin terrorists of Idlib are learning new tricks

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 3:32 AM Lee Alley <lee at morganalley.com> wrote:

> Right, so let's look at this by the numbers (or the paragraphs)....
> On 21/05/2021 20:02, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
> I find the Trotskyite-Libertarianism of the coinsplainers to be a crushing
> bore. The arguments are infantile, ignorant and insulting.
>
> Yep, categorise someone into a coalition of the "loathsome". So far so
> good ✔
>
I chaired a conference on Digital Cash, including alt-currencies in 1996.
BitCoin is not new, it is merely the latest in a long line of Ponzi
schemes, gold bug schemes, etc. eGold, GoldAge... there were many and the
feds crushed them all.

I coined the term 'coinsplainers' from 'mansplainers' because these people
invariably begin their response to any criticism by telling me I an
ignorant of a field I am generally considered to be one of the top experts.
The assumption being that the only reason someone could possibly
disagree with them is through ignorance.

> (Also shows zero clue as to what a Libertarian actually is, vs what the
> corporate press ignorantly likes to brand them as)
>
I am not the only person who finds the self styled 'Libertarians' to be
aggressively authoritarian. The reason I bracket them with the Trotskyites
is that the ideologies are essentially based on the same notion of ripping
up the existing social order so that they can replace it with a new one
more to their liking. At no point do they show the lightest interest in the
consent of those they would govern, they are merely the 'sheep'.

The fact that Libertarianism is a Trotskyite creed is further demonstrated
by the fact that large numbers of Trotskyites have moved over. The
'neo-conservatives' began as a Trotskyite faction at NYU, they switched in
the mid 70s as it emerged that they had ratted out the Communist faction to
Hoover's FBI. 'Spiked', the Libertarian rag heavily promoted by the Koch
network is run by the former editors of a Socialist Worker rag.

Don't be fooled by the techno-babble, these same people have been at the
> same old libertopian schemes since the mid 90s. Every time it is different,
> every time it is the same. The Feds crushed e-Gold which was beyond reach
> of government. Then the Feds crushed gold age which beyond reach of
> government. BitCoin is the reason gas prices soared last week with the
> Colonial Pipeline attack. Fixing cybersecurity is expensive. Criminalizing
> crypto-currencies is a much cheaper approach.
>
> Create straw man arguments without any context and only tenuous relevance
> then burn them (interestingly showing an "I'm on the govt's side and I'm
> here to help"* admission)  before showing catastrophically naive economic
> illiteracy (I've never seen people accuse dollars of being the reason
> behind bank robberies or the reason they got mugged, and I missed that bit
> in the thread about the trillions Obama, Trump and Biden have spent/will
> spend pretty pointlessly that your grandchildren will have to pay back, to
> say nothing of letting your children clean up the inflation heading our
> way). ✔
>
> * Where help == govt crushing anything that threatens its total control of
> everything, or people doing things for themselves
>
I have done cyber security for 25 years. If an obnoxious group of people
call me stupid and tell me that the government can't crush them, it amuses
me to show governments how to do just that: Go after the exchanges, go
after Tether.

That someone disagrees with your unconventional economic views does not
make them 'naive'. Nor is being on the governments when the government is
trying to stop gangs of international criminals who are holding critical
infrastructure to ransom a bad thing.

BitCoin and company are currently using more electricity than the entire
nation of Argentina. That is not a small country by any measure. The entire
premise of BTC is proof of waste. I find that offensive. The naked greed
that the crypto-currency world shows putting their crypto wallet ahead of
the planet disgusts me. And calling me names isn't going to discourage me
either.

> I see absolutely nothing moral in crypto-currencies. Anyone can prattle on
> about 'freedom'. Tump's jackbooted goons stormed the capitol on Jan 6th in
> the name of 'freedom', they called everyone who opposed them 'sheep'. By
> their fruits shall ye know them: grarpamp's language clearly shows him to
> be a bully. His only concept of 'freedom' is there being nothing to stop
> him bullying others.
>
> And in the denouement, up the ante on the ad hominem, calling grarpamp a
> Trump goon with the implied accusation of fault in all this. ✔
>
I did not call him a Trump goon, I merely pointed out that his use of
language is the same, as is yours. You have not set out to address any
issue I raised in good faith, your only interest was to try and bully me.


> This is a masterclass in gaslighting but never, ever addresses the points
> raised.
>
You describe your post perfectly.

Faced with a concrete, representative example of the harm done by BitCoin,
your response is whataboutery. BitCoin is the most expensive means of
moving money there is right now. As of today, transactions cost $22 each
which is vastly more than any rival payment scheme. Absolutely the only
reason to use BTC as a payment mechanism is if the transaction is criminal.

Ransomware would simply not be profitable without 'untraceable' cash.
Internet sales of child abuse, illegal drugs etc. would not be viable
without the same. The only quasi-legitimate use of BTC was using it to
evade China's currency controls which is what was shut down last week.

I don't use the term 'crypto-currency' because cryptography has been my
professional career. I prefer the term criminal-currency.


The Colonial Pipeline event was the beginning of the end for
criminal-currencies. China has been worried about the effect of evading
currency controls for quite a while but Colonial Pipeline was the event
that caused the axe to fall now. Jim Cramer on MSNBC switched from being a
criminal-currency booster telling people to put 5% of their assets in BTC
to being strongly opposed boasting that he has sold out and bought a farm
with the profits. The appearance of NFTs was further evidence that peak
crazy had been reached.

I saw exactly the same thing in the early 00s, Back then people would
attack me for pointing out that 'hackers' were causing criminal damage and
they weren't just doing it for fun. Kevin Mitnick had 50,000 stolen credit
card numbers on his hard drives when he was caught. And then people started
being hit by emails trying to get their bank account details and suddenly
the reporters got it - these people are criminals, we should stop
interviewing them as folk heroes and start talking about how to stop
Internet crime.

The tide is certainly beginning to turn.
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