The Crypto Industry Struggles for a Way Forward
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/technology/crypto-future-ftx.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/technology/crypto-future-ftx.html
Blockchains, What Are They Good For?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/opinion/blockchains-what-are-they-good-for.html
Paul Krugman notes:
The romance of high tech also played a role, with the very incomprehensibility of crypto discourse acting, for a while, as a selling point. And then, as prices soared, fear of missing out — plus large outlays on marketing and political influence-buying — brought many others into the bubble.
It’s an amazing story, and also a tragedy. It’s not just the small investors who have lost much if not all of their life savings. The crypto bubble has had huge costs to society as a whole. Bitcoin mining alone uses as much energy as many countries; I’ve been trying to estimate the value of the resources consumed in producing fundamentally worthless tokens, and it’s probably in the tens of billions of dollars, not counting the environmental damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/opinion/blockchains-what-are-they-good-for.html
Paul Krugman notes:
The romance of high tech also played a role, with the very incomprehensibility of crypto discourse acting, for a while, as a selling point. And then, as prices soared, fear of missing out — plus large outlays on marketing and political influence-buying — brought many others into the bubble.
It’s an amazing story, and also a tragedy. It’s not just the small investors who have lost much if not all of their life savings. The crypto bubble has had huge costs to society as a whole. Bitcoin mining alone uses as much energy as many countries; I’ve been trying to estimate the value of the resources consumed in producing fundamentally worthless tokens, and it’s probably in the tens of billions of dollars, not counting the environmental damage.
Politics and the Lack of Crypto Regulation
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/ftx-crypto-currency-sam-bankman-fried-regulators/672351/
Ordinary Investors Who Jumped into Crypto Are
Saying: Now What?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/business/cryptocurrency-investors-ftx-blockfi.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/ftx-crypto-currency-sam-bankman-fried-regulators/672351/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/business/cryptocurrency-investors-ftx-blockfi.html
The Unbearable Uselessness of Crypto
Idle Crypto Is the Devil’s Workshop
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/opinion/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-fullenkamp.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/opinion/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-fullenkamp.html
Stephen Diehl: Crypto is the ‘commoditisation of populist anger, gambling and crime’
https://www.ft.com/content/028e0109-6e87-42ed-8480-996cf645ce04
“Cryptocurrency is a giant scam, although a complicated scam . . . ” So begins Stephen Diehl’s diatribe against the crypto industry…
He argues that crypto assets’ price is based largely on there being an even greater fool who believes the hype.
“After 14 years, it is still a solution in search of a problem. It’s not building a new financial system. It’s not building a new internet. It’s not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It’s not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy. It’s a casino that’s wrapped in all of these lies. When you tear back those lies, what’s left looks like a net negative for the world.”
“Cryptocurrency is a giant scam, although a complicated scam . . . ” So begins Stephen Diehl’s diatribe against the crypto industry…
He argues that crypto assets’ price is based largely on there being an even greater fool who believes the hype.
“After 14 years, it is still a solution in search of a problem. It’s not building a new financial system. It’s not building a new internet. It’s not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It’s not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy. It’s a casino that’s wrapped in all of these lies. When you tear back those lies, what’s left looks like a net negative for the world.”
Crypto probably isn’t dead, but should it be?
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/11/23/23473340/crypto-ftx-sam-bankman-fried-contagion-bankruptcy-coinbase
For those who have been paying attention to the sector, this sort of feels like waking up from a worldwide hypnosis. The metaverse thing, which is basically Zoom meetings with legless cartoons, never made sense. Neither did this idea that images of pixelated punks and weird-looking monkeys were worth millions of dollars as NFTs. Thousands of crypto tokens and coins spun up out of thin air have been revealed to be nothing more than magic beans. Project after project has fallen apart, often taking customers’ money with them, and then there’s the multitude of outright crypto scams.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/11/23/23473340/crypto-ftx-sam-bankman-fried-contagion-bankruptcy-coinbase
For those who have been paying attention to the sector, this sort of feels like waking up from a worldwide hypnosis. The metaverse thing, which is basically Zoom meetings with legless cartoons, never made sense. Neither did this idea that images of pixelated punks and weird-looking monkeys were worth millions of dollars as NFTs. Thousands of crypto tokens and coins spun up out of thin air have been revealed to be nothing more than magic beans. Project after project has fallen apart, often taking customers’ money with them, and then there’s the multitude of outright crypto scams.
Crypto’s house of cards is falling down fast
Bitcoin - Digital Gold?
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/12/01/why-central-banks-are-stockpiling-gold
My take from May 2021: