That wasn't a change in the ledger - it was the misselling and fraudulent opening of accounts. And it was remediated, there was a change in the leadership and settlements to the victims. You're proving my point, as a system we do a decent job of enforcing good behaviour.
A better title would be Ledgers in historical perspective. The hypothetical he ends with (what if ledgers could be decentralised) is a classic example of blockchains looking for a problem. In recent history have there been examples of banks changing their own ledgers? As a civilisation we have already solved the problem of trust in a much more efficient way.
what's wrong with this comment?! that it's anti-crypto? currency needs to be a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. Given its volatility, Bitcoin could only ever realistically be useful for the latter, and only then as a risky speculation.
Due to blockchain's architectural shortcomings, you need to do the transactions off chain. Fine...
But crypto-"currencies" are actually highly speculative assets (as South Africa declared today [1]). No bro will spend them - the ideology is to HODL for 100k remember [2]? Earnest patron saints like Laszlo Hanyecz bought two papa john’s pizzas in 2010 for what would be worth today roughly $200,000,000 [3]. They wanted a new currency, but today the purpose is speculation. The whole point is not to be the greater fool.
Bitcoin was never meant to be gold, it was meant to be spent. But that hasn't happened.
The centralized nature of these oligopolies is a property of capitalism, i.e. capital consolidates power. You are saying that search, storage etc are centralised because of the tech? Why are they any more centralised than the other (pre-internet) examples I mentioned?
I think you're right about online fraud being much reduced with public private key tech, but if it's such a good idea why has no one been able to do it?
it does imply that the value doesn't stick - in fact that's exactly what I'm saying. there is no value beyond the expectation that another greater fool will buy it from you in future.
My question to you is: what's the problem? On the few times I've lost money to online fraud, the bank returned it to me.
Why does having a huge public web of transactions on the slowest ledger ever created help? What happens to your "sovereignty" when everyone can see your purchases patterns? What happens when grandma loses her wallet key?
Flowers are used for decoration, dies, teas, scents. Sometimes they may be overvalued.
Crypto doesn't have any underlying value. It's just greater fool investing, there is no underlying cashflow, asset or company. Future cash flow comes from greater fools buying in.
When you say "the internet" I think you mean the wave of web1 companies? Same as flowers above, there are real uses and value creation, which can be priced in many ways.
not cryptographically no (and would be nice to see, but crypto is not the answer). But as a consumer when I shop online I never worry - if I am defrauded the (centralised) bank will give me the money back, that's the solution and it works for everyone
nice rebuttal - but the "profitable and stable flower industry" is the trade of an underlying commodity with utility value i.e. the flowers. there is no such underlying asset with crypto. the part that is parallel is the rife speculation that left many bust.
I don't follow the automatic assumption that giving the info to centralised entity like a bank is bad? What is that you are fearing? And why is that more likely than Crypto sinking or going to zero, you losing your wallet key or someone hacking your wallet? Code is law - so you're left with nothing.
https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/latecomers-guide-to-c...
It seems as if NYT have a couple of relatively pro-crypto (or just naive) writers.