There are some other cryptocurrencies out there that are more better and more efficient than Bitcoin.
-Ethereum created a general purpose blockchain
-Algorithmic stablecoins like DAI were derided as impossible until they started working
- DEX’s were slow and useless at first but now functional and doing tons of volume.
- NFT standards like ERC-721, and NFT platforms, have flourished.
-ETH2 promises a 99% reduction in energy vs POW
-Crypto will never go truly mainstream while scaling causes txs to cost hundreds of dollars. Sidechains like Matic are functional and being used by many, and L2s like Arbitum and Optimism are launching this year. I expect to see a real acceleration of use cases and usage by normal users once those things are live.
- Wallet software has improved enormously, with hardware wallets like Ledger and Trevor and software wallets like Rainbow.
-DeFi is innovating like crazy with AAVE, Alchemix, Mirror, etc.
Going from Bitcoin to ETH2 with L2s and stable coins and other primitives took a while, but those innovations were key. Once those are all live, I think the real use cases will finally start to take off.
While it is true that there are certainly a ton of pump and dump schemes and outright scams in the crypto space, I don't think it's fair to just dismiss all of crypto as a scam.
There is a HUGE demand for an electronic currency that can be freely transacted globally. Because the currency needs to be globally usable, this currency can't be controlled by any particular government. It needs to be owned and controlled democratically by the people actually using it. It needs to have low (or zero fees). It needs to be extremely simple to perform transactions. It should be a safe place to store your money. It should be difficult or impossible to steal. It should be stable.
I could keep going and list a hundred other things, but my point is simply that we aren't there yet. This magical currency does not yet exist, but cryptocurrency is absolutely the closest we have ever gotten to it, and I'm confident that if we keep iterating and trying out different ideas, a winner will eventually arise from the mix.
Or maybe the winning solution will be some combination of different cryptocurrencies? Maybe an inflationary one, a deflationary one, and a stable one? Who knows?
The author literally rehashed _every single point_ us crypto detractors have been claiming since forever. Phrases such as:
"If you are going to invest in cryptocurrency, you invest for the reasons which make it technologically superior to the current system, not the potential value it will give you in 3 months."
In which some of us have been waiting for a decade to see said innovations actually make a dent. To give you some perspective, in that span of time we went from DOOM to Half-Life 2, from Altavista's launch to Google's IPO, and so on. The pace of uptake of crypto for its stated purposes is _appalling_ as a supposedly state-of-the-art tech.
"These properties of cryptocurrency give people reason to buy into and transact with it. The people who find value in cryptocurrency are the ones who actually use it. Remember there was a short period when people could buy games off Playstation Network and Steam, and still there are some services offering to purchase items in cryptocurrency."
And you basically can't buy any consumer good with crypto, because it turns out most of it is pretty bad for that. It says something when digital wallets and finance products dominate over, you know, actually transacting with said digital currency.
"Back on topic: the decentralization issue will soon be resolved when systems like proof of stake begin to dominate (hello Ethereum 2 again). China is most likely contains the largest mining pools because they manufacture the ASICs there."
And again with this trite. There's always some magical tech in the future of crypto which will suddenly solve its most salient problems preventing it from fulfilling its stated purpose.
I've been around the block. I've seen how economic incentives push research. It's simple: if people were actually interested in transacting with crypto, you'd see all the people building the thousandth wallet app actually working on solving these problems.
But they don't.
Because speculative trading and parting fools with their money is a greater incentive than building an actually useful technology.
"How Pinboard can say it's not a store of value is dumbfounding. I feel like staring at a wall. How is something where people have literally stored billions of dollars into, not a store of value."
This means the author doesn't know what a store of value is.
The part about his counter-critiques to smart contracts is hilarious. _This time_ we'll have flawless, formally verified, bug-free software and auditors that can competently find all bugs.