Sunday, January 30, 2022

Required Crypto-Economy Listening

I find myself fascinated, yet repulsed by cryptocurrencies, those weird funny monies backed by the full faith and credit of sketchy Libertarian techbros.  In current news, a hack of a decentralized finance platform resulted in the loss of $80 million (so valued) of crypocurrency.  Hilarity ensued when the administrators of the platform begged the hacker(s) to return the money.  I know Libertarians are naive, but this is precious:

For a good primer of cryptocurrencies and the related (both are powered by blockchain technology) Non Fungible Token market, I recommend the Scam Economy podcast, hosted by reliable lefty and internet nice guy Matt Binder.  In his first episode, he interviews cryptocurrency expert David Gerard, who explains seemingly complicated concepts in simple terms.  Blockchains?  They are basically immutable ledgers, glorified spreadsheets which can be added to, but not deleted from.  He talks about cryptocurrencies being what a Bloomberg journalist termed a 'Stimulus Led Fad' that involves a lot of wash trading, collusion in trading to hype, and pump, up an asset.

Gerard also talks about how automated, non-alterable programs, dubbed the Iron Will of Unstoppable Code by blockchain aficianados, really turn out to be sitting ducks for hackers, being difficult to alter to improve security.  He also notes that this immutability goes out the window as soon as the big boys start losing money- the small fry are not so lucky.  

He also discusses the computer functions used to 'mine' cryptocurrency- a useless 'proof of work' which is very energy intensive.

This discussion of 'nerd money ripped off from nerds' is fascinating, and entertaining, the sort of deep dive expressed in laypersons' terms which can help explicate a subject which is... uhhhh... cryptic.  Do yourself a favor and listen, it really breaks down this topic which is typically obfuscated by layers of technobabble.

5 comments:

Richard said...

Cryptocurrencies are incomprehensible to me. I don't want to spend whatever time i have trying to understand this new thing.
I am also fascinated and repulsed. Please keep us updated.

Vixen Strangely said...

Consider me Bronze-Age girl, because I do not like a value tied to pirate-bargaining outside of the walls of my city-state. I am struggling in plague times with a whole barbarian personality cult of Trumpists thumping up against my eternal bricks, and the one thing I think I understand is the bank I put my whoring proceeds into. I whore, I receive valuta, I put it in a state-based treasury, it exists, I pay my bills.

Crypto currency is I pay a degree of value for some quantity of not backed by anything bits, that could be devalued by bad feels at any moment to byte me on the ass. I can easily pass on that. Take NYC mayor (please!). He decided to take his paycheck in bitcoin just as it was being devalued. This volatility is unthinkable to me. I will take old time monies with banks and FDIC and whatever attached please and thankyou.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Cryptocurrencies are incomprehensible to me. I don't want to spend whatever time i have trying to understand this new thing.

Just think of them as a pyramid scam and leave it at that.

I can easily pass on that. Take NYC mayor (please!). He decided to take his paycheck in bitcoin just as it was being devalued.

That was a serious screw up!

Anonymous said...

I view 'alternative currencies' as coming from the same mindset as 'alternative facts', both based on bullshit.

Richard said...

I just wanted to thank Bronze Age Girl for her explanation.