'Run screaming from Bitcoin'

Tim Bray – When You Know:

I’m a person who knows a lot about how computers and software work, is generally curious, and reads fast. I’ve been wrong about lots of things over the years. But there have a been a few times when a combination of technology-literacy and just paying attention to the world have made me 100% sure that I was seeing something coming that many others weren’t. Here are a few of those stories. The reason I’m telling them is that I’m in another of those moments, seeing something obvious that not enough other people have, and I want to offer credentials before I share it. Also, some of the stories are entertaining.

Some cautionary tales about the dangers of tech-evangelism over the decades. Makes me very glad that I stepped out of the ‘Holy Wars’ back in the 1990s.

It is completely unambiguously obvious to me that Bitcoin, a brilliant achievement technically, is functioning as a Ponzi scheme, siphoning money from the pockets of rubes and into those of exchange insiders and China-based miners. I’m less alone in this position than I was in some of those others, I think a high proportion of tech insiders know perfectly well that this is a looming financial disaster.

I have never understood Bitcoin, or cryptocurrency in general, and every time I’ve tried reading something explaining it I’ve given up because the alarm siren goes off in my head. It is literally too good to be true.