Why the Yuppie Elite Dismiss Bitcoin
citadel21.com
citadel21.com
If you're going to go long on something, at least go long on sybil-prevention that doesn't wreak havoc on the environment and can be used for general computation.
Bitcoin is able to settle transactions in an anonymous and open network of participants without byzantine-faults. A naive implementation of a ledger cannot do that. Neither can data bases. That's why some find Bitcoin useful.
- Yuppies?
- Fantasy data and graphs are being evaulated
- MBA and elite uni status is taken as a proxy for how smart someone is
- IQ is taken as a measurement for smartness
- Being a Bitcoin maximalism is framed as its a distinguished taste someone has to work towards to arrive at.
I have the impression the author is a chauvinist.
Equities are also in a wild speculative bubble, but at least everyone I know who's invested in them know it and are paranoid about when the crash is coming.
The main issue I have here is that the knowledge bit glosses over the "high trust in the system/high knowledge" quadrant quite a bit. One perspective from those folks that's missing is that Bitcoin's day of reckoning will inevitably be if and when it becomes a material threat to the system, that the system itself will react to (1) suppress Bitcoin and (2) replace its own currency with one that re-establishes trust.
The history for currencies around the world broadly follow the pattern we're seeing unfold today: a "hard" currency becomes devalued, typically due to some event like war, loses trust, and the system replaces it with a new currency that can re-establish trust. Some examples are the greenback-dollar relationship, the mark-rentenmark-reichmark, and the 1994 Brazilian real.
The other shoe here is that, as part of the playbook for establishing new currencies during a crisis, the governments always suppress alternative currencies, whether those were bank-issued notes in the 19th century US, FDR's massive gold confiscation, or re-valuing debts in terms of the newly established currency - all options are in play, and there is basically nothing that the government will stop at to run it's playbook to stabilize the currency in crisis.
In that context, maybe the smart/high trust people think "Crypto is a cool technology, but it can be used to create the next central bank currency so why do I care about this one when anyone can create a new coin" and also consciously or unconsciously know that the government is going to take massive action to suppress a $1MM bitcoin.
Some good references for how currencies (and contract denominated in the currency, like debt & assets) evolve in various crises throughout history: "Principals for Navigating Big Debt Crises" by Ray Dalio, "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graeber, Perry Mehrling's course "Economics of Money and Banking."
I don't think that's really the case anymore. I've heard a lot of positive sentiment from "normal" people about BTC lately, probably because its been all over the mainstream media due to it seeing such strong gains.
People may not understand Bitcoin, but most everyone understands "asset that is seeing massive gains, making people rich, being adopted by companies around the world, and seems like it may continue to grow".
And the reason normal people dismiss it are the same as the hedge fund guy: its impractical, fad like, no intrinsic value, associated with crime, and cryptos have unlimited supply.
Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you. It's a public ledger, anyone who knows your address can read your entire transaction history.
Its not really 'yuppie elites' versus 'everyone else' but more like 'conventional investors' versus 'crypto enthusiasts'.
Central bank fiat currency is as close to having intrinsic value as anything, because you must use it (to pay taxes, at least).
> Also, Bitcoin by default is terrible for criminal purposes unless you live somewhere where law enforcement can't reach you.
He said it was associated with crime, not that it was good for it. I wouldn't be surprised if The Silk Road was the first use of cryptocurrency that wasn't a gimmick.
I fundamentally disagree with this premise, and the entire article hinges on its veracity. The idea that "Banks = system" and "Bitcoin = anti-system" is as naive as it is superficial. I wouldn't consider myself part of any elite (being a 1.5 gen US immigrant), but I'm quite bearish on BTC for the same reason I was bearish on bit torrent back in the early 2000s: its primary use-case is to circumvent legality.
Technically it's interesting, and even socially it might be interesting, but the bottom line is that most BTC these days is used either to (a) make money off of speculation (which isn't much different than options trading or gambling), or (b) buy illegal things (be it drugs, weapons, porn, ransoms, etc.).
Ironically, the article doesn't even touch on where BTC could actually make a positive impact (countries with failing currencies, or out-of-control inflation). But really, in these specific scenarios, the US Dollar is just as good as BTC. In fact, I remember in post-Communist Europe, the de facto currency was US Dollars, as local currencies were a mess. Even when I last visited Romania, I remember having to bribe a government official (to prevent stonewalling our EU passport applications) with a bottle of wine and a few hundred bucks.
I assume similar mechanics work for those who have a decent stake in it.