Hi all,
I am a regular reader of Project Syndicate articles. While I don’t always agree with the authors, I find they always present an interesting view on social, economic and political aspects, sometimes the angle of the view is very unconventional, too, but the quality is high, they are always well written and the underlying research is well grounded. Nothing extraordinary here – the authors are often Noble prize winners writing in their area of expertise!
With a surprise I found a piece written on the subject interesting for us here:
The Blockchain Lie by Roubini, source:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/blockchain-big-lie-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-10It came with a surprise, because while (as I said in the beginning) I find the Project Syndicate content to be of high quality, that particular piece is badly researched, full of racial and gender bias, and generally full of nonsense and prejudice.
Let me serve you some quotations:
A few self-serving white men (there are hardly any women or minorities in the blockchain universe) pretending to be messiahs for the world’s impoverished, marginalized, and unbanked masses claim to have created billions of dollars of wealth out of nothing.
As should be clear, the claim of “decentralization” is a myth propagated by the pseudo-billionaires who control this pseudo-industry.
Fully 99% of all transactions occur on centralized exchanges that are hacked on a regular basis. And, unlike with real money, once your crypto wealth is hacked, it is gone forever.
While I agree with Roubini that a blockchain without a token is just a database (he uses the word “spreadsheet”), he uses the fact that “blockchain” is an overhyped word used by many to sell their ideas better (and for higher price) to generally undermine all related technologies and all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, which seems outright manipulation to me.
The article is one month old and it already has amassed more than one hundred comments. It would be interesting to have a discussion here in the forum too.
Please share your thoughts.