Complex Numbers

Cryptonite

Just a few short hours ago, I had a few drinks with Sum1 , who's visiting for a couple of days (and also with Artemismad ), so it's just as well that today's randomly-selected article is easy to deal with. It does, however, touch on a controversial and divisive topic, one that has been known to destroy friendships, end marriages, and divide siblings. Yes, I'm talking about... cryptocurrency.

Or, rather, Cracked is doing most of the talking.

5 Foolish Flaws That Make Crypto Total Trash  

Well, I guess we know where the world's foremost intellectual site stands on the issue. Especially when they can't count.

Whether you think cryptocurrency is the second coming of Cyber-Jesus or that crypto is just stupid computer program money based on nothing (as opposed to fiat currency, which is also based on nothing), crypto's got some problems all the best Reddit-soaked minds haven't solved yet ...

Look, in the end, everything is based on nothing. The other alternative to fiat currency? Commodity-based currency. What's the actual, intrinsic value of, say, gold? Why, it's whatever people decide it is. Come the Apocalypse, gold won't be worth the paper it's printed on: it's shiny and pretty, but if you can't eat it or smite your enemies with it, it's worthless. What will be valuable after the complete collapse of civilization? Certainly not crypto, which requires electricity -- you know, that stuff that we won't have ANY of when the survivors emerge, starved and blinking, from their bunkers.

No, the Ruler of the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland will be whoever has managed to stockpile the most coffee.

Anyway. Back to cryptocurrency, which I call Dunning-Krugerrands. As usual, Cracked counts it down.

6. Lose Your Password, Lose Your Money

One of the benefits of crypto is that it's decentralized. There's no central bank, no cabal of corporate overlords, Cultural Marxists, and whoever else we don't happen to like today, controlling your cash. Instead, crypto relies on a wallet, a password-protected application that holds your digital assets for you, like your own mini-bank (not of the spank variety).

Periodically, I forget the password to my primary bank account. I can recover it via a link (assuming I can remember the password to my email account). I don't think it works that way for Dunning-Krugerrands.

It's true that you can call up a professional to use brute force attacks on a crypto wallet to try and unlock it if you want to put your economic future in the hands of Dave Bitcoin.

So... it's not secure?

5. Letting Someone Else Hold Your Bitcoins ... Doesn't Always Go Well Either

I can't find a decent excerpt here. You're just going to have to go to the link to see how bitcoin exchanges can suck ass.

4. Crypto Anonymity is Only For the Sophisticated

Police are actually getting pretty good at tracing and seizing the stuff.

So... yeah, this. Think you're safe from prosecution because you hired that hitman (who was really an FBI agent) with Dogecoin? Such naïvété. wow. much laughter.

3. Crypto is Actually Hard to Use

Crypto relies on digital infrastructure alone, which means that if that infrastructure screws up, you can't buy a car, pay for pizza, or the bootleg Ninja Turtles boxset you've had your eye on. You're totally dependent on it to transact business.

Again, utterly useless come the Apocalypse. But even if we manage to escape that, how many times a day does YOUR internet glitch?

2. All Our New Renewable Energy Capacity is Being Eaten by Crypto

Hell, for that kind of energy, you could just go mine gold. Like, out of the ground and everything.

This has been bugging me for a while. So much energy is needed to mine twitcoin now that, well, there have got to be more efficient ways to make a profit, right? At some point, it will become cheaper to invent a fusion reactor that can literally turn lead into gold... at which point, gold will lose what value it has left.

1. Inequality is a Huge Problem in Crypto Too

Another one I can't do justice to. This isn't about racial inequality, though, but the ability for large players to do market manipulation.

You know, just like with fiat currency.

I'm not trying to come down hard against cryptocurrencies, mind you. I don't know enough about them, and I know I don't know enough about them. I just think it's important to know potential downsides whenever trying anything new. If you can still live with the disadvantages, great, have at it. But I've encountered too many people (all online, naturally) who have absolutely converted to the cryptocult, and there's no swaying them.

And it's still a sad state of affairs when those disadvantages are most clearly enunciated by a comedy website.