I think it's worth separating the technology of cryptocurrencies from the culture surrounding it.
Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. I doubt that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin expected it to blow up in the way that it did, rather than just being a cyberpunk experiment that would potentially lead to some world-changing technology in the future. I would consider myself an early Bitcoin adopter, and all I ever really used it for was to buy pizza for like 10 BTC back when it was all a bit of an interesting joke. It certainly seemed like something that could change the world, but not in its current form.
When viewed in this light, issues like carbon emissions are more understandable. When you're prototyping some new idea, you probably aren't thinking about carbon emissions at that point. That's something that can be hopefully figured out later, like Ethereum are trying to do.
What turned Bitcoin/cryptocurrency from an experiment into the toxic hellscape it has become are cryptobros, scammers and gamblers looking to make a quick buck, helped along by investors and finance companies who are drawn to buzzwords and don't understand anything about technology.
Clearly we're entering a long crypto winter now, which I think is a good thing. However, I doubt the story is over quite yet.
> Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage.
[1]
- Cryptographer David Chaum first proposed a blockchain-like protocol in his 1982 dissertation
- Further work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta
- In 1992, Haber, Stornetta, and Dave Bayer incorporated Merkle trees into the design
- The first decentralized blockchain was conceptualized by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.
Even the most charitable interpretation makes blockchain 14 years old. In computer tech terms it's old, and there are still no discernible use cases for it. Because, as the article succinctly puts it: "technologies, processes, people, regulations, laws, industry, and the entire legal and societal foundation that underlie an organisation, no matter how imperfect, aren’t 'web2', and that they can’t just be converted to 'web3', whatever that meant."
> don't understand anything about technology.
Oh, they understand it very well. THey also understand that humans are gullible.
It's not particularly early in technology terms. It's very early in terms of society, finance and money, though.
It took us at least 3000 years to go from coins to fiat currency, and we still don't really know how it works. It took 50 years to go from physical money to mostly digital, and we're still not completely there. Contactless payments predated Bitcoin and they're still rolling out in the USA, despite being a very minor upgrade on the existing technology. Up until fairly recently, finance industries wouldn't even touch the cloud. I mean the USA only reached 50% internet penetration in 2000, and packet switching was invented all the way back in 1965, and was still considered a new technology by many in the mid 2000s.
Cryptocurrencies might completely fizzle out, or they might completely replace the modern finance industry. Personally, I think they'll die in their current form, but we'll take some of what we learnt to build new technologies. My view is that CBDCs have more potential than cryptocurrencies, but there's still a lot of cross-pollination going on between the two right now.
For what it's worth, I don't own any cryptocurrencies and haven't for years. Never touched NFTs and I'm still not really entirely sure what Web 3 is. I stopped paying much attention when the whole industry was overrun by bros and shysters. I just don't think it's wise to completely dismiss this branch of technology so readily. Certainly not in a global bear market when everyone is doubting everything and dumping their risky investments.
Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. I doubt that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin expected it to blow up in the way that it did, rather than just being a cyberpunk experiment that would potentially lead to some world-changing technology in the future. I would consider myself an early Bitcoin adopter, and all I ever really used it for was to buy pizza for like 10 BTC back when it was all a bit of an interesting joke. It certainly seemed like something that could change the world, but not in its current form.
When viewed in this light, issues like carbon emissions are more understandable. When you're prototyping some new idea, you probably aren't thinking about carbon emissions at that point. That's something that can be hopefully figured out later, like Ethereum are trying to do.
What turned Bitcoin/cryptocurrency from an experiment into the toxic hellscape it has become are cryptobros, scammers and gamblers looking to make a quick buck, helped along by investors and finance companies who are drawn to buzzwords and don't understand anything about technology.
Clearly we're entering a long crypto winter now, which I think is a good thing. However, I doubt the story is over quite yet.