bitcoin

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bitcoin is something that does not actually exist, what does exist is a 2-bits coin, AKA a quarter, worth 25¢.

Criticism

Monoculture

From https://twitter.com/patio11/status/682663933941952512 via Ben Werdmüller

[@patio11] Bitcoin is a single C++ codebase, Bitcoin core, not a protocol that anyone can independently interoperate with. It's IE6, not HTTP.

Numerous unresolvable scaling issues

See:

• https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7
• Follow-up: https://medium.com/@octskyward/a-small-followup-aa399a83acbb

Related:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.html

Spambots

Casual mention of Bitcoin on social media bring out the spam bots in force

• https://www.facebook.com/tantek.celik/posts/10102083451927433

Mining Wastes Electricity At Loss

Quotes from https://pthree.org/2016/01/30/bitcoin-mining-rate-and-waste/ tweeted:

"$609 spent on electricity per Bitcoin mined. Bitcoin is currently trading at $376/BTC"

[1]

So, according to those numbers, unless using renewable energy, cheaper electricity, or Bitcoin trading goes north of $610 USB/BTC mining for Bitcoin is a net loss. This comes at the expense of 1.3 million pounds of CO2 released into the atmosphere every hour.

[2]

"I would argue that Bitcoin is the worst idea to come out of Computer Science in the history of mankind."

[3]

Enables ransomware

• http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Hospital-hack-reveals-digital-risk-in-medical-6834978.php

Difficult to Sell

• https://twitter.com/TedOnPrivacy/status/940588631709896704 (thread)
  • "I'm trying to sell some of my Bitcoin, and the whole process is so terrible, it's almost hilarious."
  • "is it really money if you can't use it nor convert it to anything else" [4]

Insecure Wallet Services

• 2017-12-06 Business Insider: Thieves stole potentially millions of dollars in bitcoin in a hacking attack on a cryptocurrency company
• 2017-11-13 Business Insider: The amount of ether frozen in digital wallets is worth $162 million (Ethereum rather than Bitcoin but still)

See Also

• monoculture
• 2017-12-06 Ars Technica: Bitcoin’s insane energy consumption, explained

  One estimate suggests the Bitcoin network consumes as much energy as Denmark.

• 2018-02-02 The Guardian: Bitcoin biggest bubble in history, says economist who predicted 2008 crash
• 2018-04-03 "Decentralized Identifiers": Bitcoin Cargo-Culture and Land Grabbing for the Top Level Names (thread)
• Criticism: 2018-07-13 NYT 12 Russian Agents Indicted in Mueller Investigation

  Russian military intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U. […] the Russians principally sought to use Bitcoin to fund their work, including the purchase of servers and domain names. […] also sought to create their own money by “mining” Bitcoins […] Bitcoin generated from the GRU’s mining activity was used, for example, to pay a Romanian company to register the domain dcleaks.com

• Lightning Network
• 2019-03-22 WSJ: Most Bitcoin Trading Faked by Unregulated Exchanges, Study Finds

  Nearly 95% of all reported trading in bitcoin is artificially created by unregulated exchanges, a new study concludes

• LOL: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1261351775698694147 (see threads, quote tweets etc. well executed troll?)
  • "I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me." @jk_rowling May 15, 2020
• Criticism: Could singlehandedly raise global temp 2°C+ in 3 decades (or less). 2018-10-29 Nature: Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C
• Criticism: 2021-02-27 update: The Guardian: Electricity needed to mine bitcoin is more than used by 'entire countries'

  one dollar’s worth of bitcoin took 17 megajoules of energy, more than double the amount of energy it took to mine one dollar’s worth of copper, gold and platinum