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

[Marc Sunet]

Very fair points, thank you. And the history lesson was a good one too.

I would not want to pretend I have the technical expertise to question 
anything you said, and I have the same opinion on the morality side of 
things. That being said, cybersecurity is more expensive than spreading 
FUD like you said in the previous email, and it's clear that that is 
what is keeping corporate media busy these days. Bitcoin and other 
cryptocurrencies enable/boost schemes like ransomware for sure, but USD, 
and currencies before it, have also been an enabler of crime for the 
longest. It's not like any of the crimes you mentioned are new. Yet the 
corporate media, of course, chooses to mostly ignore that fact, because 
they have a political agenda to further. So my criticism (and I think 
part of grarpamp's email) is that the media is only looking at the side 
of the coin that best serves its interests, not educating/informing 
people (I guess that would be a first.)

You also ask "who lies on that scale?" and seem to be very fixated with 
Trump. But US governments before and after him have and will continue to 
do so. I don't think this point necessitates much explanation? For what 
it's worth, Biden so far hasn't done much to protect journalists and 
undo Trump's policies in that regard. Those are precisely the people who 
can uncover truth:

https://freedom.press/news/biden-defends-trump-surveillance-of-reporters/

https://freedom.press/news/biden-justice-end-assange-prosecution-coalition-letter/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/02/amnesty-international-joins-civil-liberties-groups-to-ask-biden-to-drop-case-against-julian-assange/

And for what it's worth, Ethereum is switching to PoS soon. That should 
at least address their energy waste?

https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/05/18/country-power-no-more/

On 5/23/21 10:41 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 2:06 AM Marc Sunet <msunet at shellblade.net 
> <mailto:msunet at shellblade.net>> wrote:
>
>     So what specifically is immoral about cryptocurrencies in your
>     opinion?
>
>     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):
>
>     https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable
>     <https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable>
>
>     https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/
>     <https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/>
>
>     This mailing list always turns hostile for no reason. Since you
>     are experts, why not educate people when somebody raises a point here?
>
> 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'.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>
>
-- 
GPG: 9C2A AF1D CC91 0A53 AB0A  B6A1 C457 0E01 081F 8F91

https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/

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