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Why Charles Stross Wants Bitcoin To Die In a Fire

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "SF writer Charles Stross writes on his blog that like all currency systems, Bitcoin comes with an implicit political agenda attached and although our current global system is pretty crap, Bitcoin is worse. For starters, BtC is inherently deflationary. There is an upper limit on the number of bitcoins that can ever be created so the cost of generating new Bitcoins rises over time, and the value of Bitcoins rise relative to the available goods and services in the market. Libertarians love it because it pushes the same buttons as their gold fetish and it doesn't look like a "Fiat currency". You can visualize it as some kind of scarce precious data resource, sort of a digital equivalent of gold. However there are a number of huge down-sides to Bitcoin says Stross: Mining BtC has a carbon footprint from hell as they get more computationally expensive to generate, electricity consumption soars; Bitcoin mining software is now being distributed as malware because using someone else's computer to mine BitCoins is easier than buying a farm of your own mining hardware; Bitcoin's utter lack of regulation permits really hideous markets to emerge, in commodities like assassination and drugs and child pornography; and finally Bitcoin is inherently damaging to the fabric of civil society because it is pretty much designed for tax evasion. "BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions," concludes Stross. "The current banking industry and late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.""

4 of 691 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bigger than Jesus? by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, that just means each Bitcoin is worth 3.1 Jesuses, proving it's a better currency because scarcity is the only thing that matters when picking a currency, duh!

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Re:Bigger than Jesus? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Plus Jesus is more deflationary than Bitcoin since the world supply dropped from one to zero, briefly peaked at one again and then dropped back to zero and stayed there.

    Just imaging if the church had also thought to hoard their Jesus. Due to the low supply, it would be worth so much that they'd have more money than Je... uh god.

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    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  3. Re:Bigger than Jesus? by Anarchduke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats a bunch of crap. There have to be a couple of million Jesuses running around in Mexico alone.

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    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  4. Re:Mod Parent Article Down. by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

    And knowing /. It will be raised again in a few days.