Crypto as in Crypto

When I first heard “crypto” for “cryptocurrency” I was saddened because it seemed like the meaning was being coopted away from the “real” meaning of “cryptography”. But now, I think we're stuck with it. Words sometimes just have multiple related-but-different meanings. Like how a chemist's "organic" is different from a farmer's "organic". Or, perhaps more saliently to this community, Y Combinator's "hacker" is different from CNN's "hacker".

I think the problem is that blockcain fans mostly don't care about real crypto :) and use "crypto" as a synonym for digital currency. To me, saying "crypto" means blockchain seems like saying "paper" means book. Sure it is needed, but it is not really the most relevant thing to its function. We surely wouldn't call a pdf "paper" but I think some might call Ripple or even a simple sql database "crypto", and cryptography probably still is used in there to some degree but I think it is very far from the core.

Radical proposal: Abbreviations can mean more than one thing depending on context.

This reminds me of those insisting that drones are not drones, but quad-copters (what about those with 6 propellers?)

Language is defined by it's usage.

Taken to extreme, I've seen serious linguists argue that if a lot of different background non-native speakers make the same mistake when speaking English, maybe they are right and the native speakers are wrong.

> Whatever we call it, we still need a use case for full trustless crypto. The reason you find many cryptographers skeptical of Blockchain as a major new technological framework (Internet 3.0!) is that many of us have tried to pitch and develop trustless business models before. And all of the use cases we had in mind have consistently been better served by more centralized, higher-trust alternatives. So we look at Blockchain with a feeling of “we’ve tried this before, and it’s not clear there’s anything sufficiently new to make users want this.”

Is there a reason this argument isn't getting wider airplay? Always felt the same way. Interesting to have it validated by someone who sounds like he's been around the block (pun intended).

The loss of the word 'meme' was unfortunate imho. For cryptography, we can always say simply 'cryptography,' instead of 'crypto.'

Idk I've always said encryption when talking about cryptography. Also context would matter when discerning the intended meaning of crypto as a coin or crypto as in cryptography.

I don't understand why there has to be a battle at all. What is this, a grammar nazi club?