Cryptocurrency Is an Abject Disaster

From my perspective, it is not propaganda but it is my opinion. I didn’t come to the conclusion through any scientific rigor, but rather through observation. I have seen a spike in crypto discussion over the past year or two by, my obviously small sample, of thought leaders and entrepreneurs in primarily in Africa. The talk isn’t ever of get rich quick schemes, but instead focuses on generating long-term family wealth. It’s pretty inspiring to be honest. Investing in general moves your focus (or should) away from the now and to the future. For a lot of folks, myself included, a “future” never seemed possible. Maybe it’s silly but I started taking better care of myself once I started investing recently. I’m lucky, I live in the USA, I make decent money and have easy access via apps like Robinhood. What if I only had access to brokers who aren’t regulated or require deposits well exceeding anything I’ve ever saved? Truly, it pains me to say, but crypto markets are maturing and while they may not be stable compared to traditional 1st word financial markets they’re a lot better than many other alternatives.

Lastly please don’t see this as a recommendation to buy crypto. I wouldn’t unless you just wanna show off your diamond hands. Fwiw, I have to date ever owned exactly zero Bitcoin and only have a few lite coins mined years back (all of which have still not paid back the costs, but are close... Amazon or Tesla would’ve returned better in my case). I might not find it useful myself but it’s pretty hard to deny a lot of other people do find it useful.

In small part. Inflation from 1955 to 2013 is almost exactly 9 times. That accounts for $495 million.

Is there value in nonreversibility? No, that "feature" has negative value, and it's the reason people trust credit cards.

Value in anonymity? Not at this scale, no. On net that feature just is not workable in a society built on anything other than libertarian-anarchy. And most people actually want a structured society, not fiefdoms.

Take KYC and AML laws, for example. What percentage of people do you think would say we should abolish them, if you explain what they are, and what they are for.

Open Source? The functioning of our traditional economy is pretty open in its working. It's complex, yes. But you are welcome to understand it, and participate in the process.

The "code" that the economy works on is legal code. I think where I disagree with you is that computer code is inherently more suitable. I say that as a professional programmer, who's been programming for decades.

Here's the thing: "The programs" was never the problem.

I can illustrate this best with smart contracts. They're a solution to a non-problem, while making the actual problem much worse. Contract disputes mainly come from disagreements about what the contract means, and errors in codifying intention as text.

Ability to enforce was never the biggest problem. Never. And by forcing the enforcement by using a smart contract it's actually making the problem worse, where "that's not what I meant". Yes, the default action in a real contract, without contextual evidence, is to take the wording of a contract literally (and oxford commas matter). But if there is other evidence, then yes a court will take that into account. Do you not want that? Do you honestly want a maliciously injected underhanded bug in a contract to be enforced, with no recourse?

I think the problem with your question is that people who ask it don't actually know what they're asking.

In the libertarian-anarchist utopia based on this infrastructure the enforcement methods are beyond the reach of the police. So what do you do when someone robs you? When someone uses a bug in a smart contract to take your house?