- Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
- Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
- Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.
Holy shit, the crypto bros are really triggered by this, out in full force in the comments. If the only argument you can bring for crypto is that you make/made money on it, that sounds a lot like a Ponzi scheme
It is a Ponzi scheme. Very clearly one. How that garbage is legal, I will never know. I could have gotten into crypto from the ground floor eons ago and made tons of money but I didn’t because I knew it was illegal and figured the whole thing was going to collapse as soon as governments found out about it. Imagine my shock when most legitimized the damn thing. Still wouldn’t bother even if I could go back and do it again knowing the brain dead, money-greedy idiots are going to legalize a literal Ponzi scheme because I have values and morals.
Yeah, it’s relatively easy to make good money in crypto if you understand investing. There are a lot of things that are illegal in regulated securities markets that are not yet illegal with crypto.
I intentionally don’t invest in crypto, because it doesn’t produce anything. Any money you make is just taken from another investor, usually because they don’t know what they’re doing. When you invest in a company, you make products and sell them to customers. Something is created and rarely are people cheated.
The people investing in crypto are intentionally cheating uninformed investors in a way that is not possible in regulated securities markets.
You mean, executives with “fiduciary responsibility” take extremely irresponsible actions to “maximize shareholder profits” and gut the company that produces those products such that the product is minimally viable, borderline shit, and might even kill the end user (Boeing, Tesla, GE, etc etc). Oh and jobs and the economy are on the line too, so that’s great.
All of that is way more productive than crypto because something actually gets produced. Crypto is literally only gambling and scams, plus it’s bad for the Earth. And I have nothing against gambling, it’s the fact that vulnerable people lose tons of money thinking it’s an investment.
Plus actual gambling is way more fun.
You’re not making the gambling more productive, you’re making the production worse.
That’s why you need to think about the company you’re going to invest in.
Your critique is accurate for too many companies, yes. But by far not for all.
Isn’t that the same as investing in any currency?
No one is investing in regular currencies. You’re supposed to use it to buy stuff.
No, people absolutely do invest in currency. It’s quite a big thing actually.
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0412/the-basics-of-currency-trading.aspx
Forex traders are shocked.
See, the real crypto people are not in it for the number go up. They are in it for the technology and the human freedom that it can bring. So we don’t like those people either.
Then it’s weird how they keep telling me how much money they’ve made (and even sometimes ridiculing me for choosing not to participate).
I mean, hell, I would like you to participate too. But I understand that may not be your thing. And that’s okay. I don’t want you to participate for some number go up mad gains stock casino thing. I want you to participate because I seriously believe that Monero can help move human freedom forward by eventually replacing government money.
I don’t have a problem with government money. If the government money no longer has value, I’m fucked regardless.
I mean fair enough just that another money could get you out of that situation before it gets that bad. If nothing else than through bribes.
Good luck bribing someone with something that requires an electronics and communications infrastructure if things get that bad. I’d keep chickens if that was your worry.
How many people got in early, made some money, lost it all getting scammed or just making bad choices, and will spend the rest of their lives chasing that dragon? How many drunks are at some bar right now talking about how much money they could have made if they had waited to sell, or how much their nft portfolio is gonna be worth when the market rebounds?
I actually had the same thing happen to me because I discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and dismissed it as crazy and that the governments would never let it exist. And then several years later heard about it again in a news article and was like, wait, the government hasn’t shut that down yet and started doing some reading and really understood
I mean not to mention the ridiculous amount of electricity it uses, and heat generated. but hey it’s low priority even though every year lately is the hottest in record.
For clarification. To my understanding, the older cryptographic currencies use an immense amount of power (Proof of Work). But newer models have solved that issue by switching to a Proof of Stake model instead.
You are correct, but that doesn’t mean they all use the same model. Apparently in the USA, it’s as much electricity as the entire state of Utah. Also apparently Texas is a big home for it:
Locations of 52 U.S. cryptocurrency mining operations, as of January 2024
So you’re saying it’s “Hot! Hot! Hot!”
Fully agree. I think there exist both good and scammy-bubble types of blockchain and crypto. Crypto can be a scam, memecoin rugpull, ponzi scheme, …etc, but it can also be the peer-2-peer decentrilized self-custody borderless international currency of people away from governments manipulation, inflation, banks and middlemen, which is something that has its own advantages and negatives as we’ve seen it with criminals, tax evation and money laundering, but also used by people fleeing war zones after their banking come down and escaping trumbling government fiats. However, it also needs regulations and the protections of world governments to work but also claims to want governments and regulations off.
To clarify my position honestly, I think blockchain programming is here to stay but today 99% of it including BTC could be the scammy bubble type and does not represent or have most of the therotical advantages of the bitcoin’s original white paper which I listed above.
I agree. Every crypto except XMR seems to be only seen as an investment to make more money.
based monerochan pfp enjoyer
Why XMR and not BTC? Do the privacy defaults change how it’s seen?
BTC is not private. XMR is actively being used mainly on the darknet because of its superior privacy guarantees. BTC is mostly sold and bought just like investments.
BTC is solely a mode of investment, it offers no real benefits over fiat except decentralization. At least XMR is as or even more anonymous than cash, whereas Bitcoin has zero utility.
If there was a way to use Bitcoin more privately than USD cash, would that give it utility?
Yes. I suppose it would also have a sort of utility if it was mass adopted and therefore practically spendable for the average person, but I would argue that there is no inherent utility to Bitcoin.
Trust me, real crypto people hate those guys as much as you do.
Nope you must be trying to make money off me /s