SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

I'm actually teaching a course in Cryptography right now that touches blockchain a bit. And I asked this question with a practical purpose to know if there are any warnings I should give my students about practical implications of the technology.

> elaborate on what specifically?

> plenty of academics talking about blockchain = bad

Elaborate of what is "bad" specifically, and suggest any specific trustworthy academics who made any statements like that.

A top of the line supercomputing center needs 4-6 megawatts of energy, cooling and utilities included. CERN's main power supply is around 12-15 megawatts IIRC. Bitcoin network needs as much energy as a mid sized European country, which is way bigger than this number.

A normal bank data center probably needs 1-2 megawatts at most, on the other hand.

That's the power aspect.

On the other hand cryptocurrencies are slowly started to being regulated, so they'll be divided to legal and illegal ones. So money laundering will be no different regardless of the medium/currency you use.

It's the cat and mouse game part. Cryptocurrencies are trying to go against systems which are built over centuries, if not millenia.

Good luck with that.

So, following on the logic presented - any project that slightly touches on decentralized finance is problematic?

How about languages? Would smart contract languages like Solidity, Vyper, Huff and Move be disallowed under this policy?

Would repositories touching on ECDSA suddenly be impacted? Will research repos into ZKP use in blockchain?

How can security researchers add exploitation examples that use one of the aforementioned languages? I assume you didn't intend to prevent knowledge sharing that can actually educate developers and prevent attackers from affecting the same unsuspecting users this move supposedly helps.

Like most things, this is a complex topic which spans large intertwined ecosystems. They don't all boil down to get rich quick schemes - that's the part I find most misguided.

Keeping with the sentiment you present, a less destructive and easier to digest policy for consumers ( without arbitrarily dismissing all blockchain-adjacent development teams ) would be something like making sure tokens ( ERC20, for example ) and other forms of digital assets require some kind of approval process with your scrutiny.

Blanket banning the Ethereum codebase due to fear of potential fraud / misuse is the equivalent of demolishing the building a stock exchange is in when proper recourse would be de-listing or freezing stocks that are suspected of being fraudulent.

"These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments which take advantage of people who are suffering from economic hardship and growing global wealth inequality"

This can easily be applied to other markets. Does that mean that a repository that helps fetch current OTC stock prices be disallowed as well? If it doesn't, why would that be different from an API for crypto conversion rates?

I feel like this could have been handled better - wouldn't it be a bit easier if you define a much narrower scope than "prohibition of cryptocurrency or blockchain-related projects"?

There are a lot of projects that depend on the use of validated ( or fiat reserve based ) cryptocurrencies and are not widely considered to be scams as your opinion suggests. Just take a look at Aave, Superfluid and certain DAO projects. There are governance mechanisms in place - they may not be everyone's cup of tea, but neither are moves done by non-blockchain companies in the public sphere.

Preventing access to technologies for decentralized accumulation / pooling of wealth ( DAOs, for example ) just aligns SourceHut with centralized regulatory measures and extreme censorship, causing more issues to those already harmed by censorship and abuse of power from their own governments.