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It Only Took 37 Seconds For Two Bitcoin 'Celebs' To Start Fighting on a Cruise Ship (mashable.com)

Posted by msmash on from the not-the-onion dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The cruise ship wasn't big enough for the both of them. On September 10, somewhere in the Mediterranean, two well-known rivals -- Jimmy Song, a venture partner at Blockchain Capital LLC and Roger Keith Ver, an early investor in bitcoin-related startups and Bitcoin Cash evangelist -- in the cryptocurrency space stood awkwardly poolside. A crowd, sporting a mix of cryptocurrency-themed t-shirts and bikinis, lounged nearby on the ship's upper deck. One man, sweatpants sloshing in the water, steadied a tripod. The Bitcoin versus Bitcoin Cash debate was about to begin. It only took 37 seconds to spiral out of control.

It was perhaps to be expected that the debate wouldn't go smoothly, but just how quickly it went off the rails surprised even those in attendance. Song, cowboy hat atop his head and microphone in hand, attempted to introduce the format of the event -- a "Lincoln-Douglas style debate" -- but was soon interrupted by Ver. Shouts of "no Roger" emanated from the crowd, as Ver told the audience to "calm down." It quickly spun out from there, with Song repeatedly telling Ver to "sit down" as Ver angled for the microphone. "Do you want to debate me or not," Song demanded. "OK then sit down," he repeated as he stood behind the podium. Bickering over whether or not Ver would get a one-minute introduction before the official start of the debate continued on, with Song addressing the crowd and Ver shouting at the top of his lungs. They heatedly yelled over each other as the crowd jeered. Three minutes had passed, and things were not going well. And then someone handed Ver a mic. You better believe Song wasn't having that, and so he stormed offstage saying he was "refusing to do the debate." Finally with the stage all to himself, Ver attempted to speak but was immediately shouted down by an angry, shirtless man yelling from the pool. And that's all just the first five minutes. The video is over 40 minutes long.

12 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Who are we to judge? by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    If Jimmy Song and Roger Keith Ver want to wear cryptocurrency themed bikinis, who are we to judge them?

    1. Re:Who are we to judge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In my judgement, Bitcoin Cash BCH is still the better coin to date and suitable for continuing commercial use over near term 1-3 year future... low fees, fast, decentralized... that's a good set.
      BCH is closest to the original whitepaper, AND since all coins naturally evolve after their first release, BCH is properly exploring and taking a less complex, simple and natural path to scalability.

      Whereas Bitcoin Core BTC is developing all sorts of crazy new protocols to try to scale.
      Crazy new protocols and sidecoins are in fact fine, but ONLY if other simpler means have been exhausted first. That hasn't happened yet.

      The simple fact is that the formerly anarchic voluntary libertarian BTC of old has sold themselves out to centralized sidecoin forces for profit and control. That's what lightning is. And that's what humans do when they are unable to hold themselves to higher philosophies of non control. That's bad and BTC will thus die a slow death as people migrate to more free choices.

      BCH did the simplest first and obvious evolution of raising the blocksize, duhr.
      And I'm looking forward to what other distributed decentralized scaling mechanisms they come up with.

      However long term, 5+ years out... for ANY coin to succeed, it will need to not only be fully decentralized and free from control, fast to within a few minutes or less, with fees at or below credit card levels.... but ALSO fully cryptographically encrypted and privacy coins using the likes of Zero Knowledge Proofs. Because right now nearly ALL coins are completely non-financially private and open to all controls and dataminers... that's a terrible loss from even fiat cash.

      ZKP strong cryptographically private coins like Zcash ZEC, Zencash ZEN, Bitcoin Private BTCP, etc are the ONLY option for the coming cryptocurrency clash with fiat. If you don't have the choice to keep your transactions private, you're going to be monitored, reported, taxed and blocked off the net straight back to fiat stone age.

      ps: Monero XMR is not a cryptographically strong privacy coin, it just got shilled into the darkweb market scene by Anti Forces and was thus *believed* to be private and non analyzable by the drug addled retards therein. Monero is nowhere near as strongly private as ZKP is, for example ZEC. Monero also cannot scale due to requiring tons of space just to perform its false privacy claims.

    2. Re: Who are we to judge? by jd · · Score: 2

      The covenant only says you have to judge code by the code and not by the contributor.

      Not sure why anyone has a problem with that, beyond people seemingly wanting to have problems and not RTFMing.

      Same goes for the "debate" described. Attitudes that focus on having problems with others.

      This four digit UID has used Linux since 0.1 and 386BSD before that. I do not recall any antagonism towards a meritocracy in the USENET days. Maybe I'm too old for this. In my day, it was all about the code and the belief in the freedom of sharing. The covenant simply enforces what we, the free/libre/open source contributors hold to be true. It's no more onorous than the GPL.

      But too many today think they know better. Maybe they do. They can prove it by founding their own communities. Parasites prove nothing.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. pathetic by mr_resident · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, hand your money over to guys like that. Excellent financial planning.

  3. Ah, the lovers of the Dunning-Krugerrands... by cunina · · Score: 4, Funny

    Their antics never fail to entertain.

  4. Spoiled brat by leroybrown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm avoiding cryptocurrency because I don't understand anything more than the basics but the guy in the baseball cap comes across like a spoiled brat, constantly name-dropping economists, brags about how many economics books he's read, and argues based on anecdotes and emotions instead of logic.

    --
    Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
    1. Re: Spoiled brat by jd · · Score: 2

      Trust me, none of those you've listenable studied worth a damn and theirs is not the better way. They boast, brag and then rob you blind. If you genuinely want a better way, ignore those offering it. Look for the quiet ones who get the job done. If you need to advertise, you have failed.

      Linux was spread by word of mouth, because it worked. That is how you know it was a good solution.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    2. Re:Spoiled brat by quantaman · · Score: 2

      I'm avoiding cryptocurrency because I don't understand anything more than the basics but the guy in the baseball cap comes across like a spoiled brat, constantly name-dropping economists, brags about how many economics books he's read, and argues based on anecdotes and emotions instead of logic.

      I've been skeptical of the long term viability for a while but this debate really sealed the deal for me.

      One of the people arguing for Bitcoin was again one of the big names in the community, and he was generally nutty and incoherent. I don't know if he was always that unhinged or if he'd been living inside the bubble for too long, but it was clear that at the highest levels the Bitcoin community isn't able to filter the crazy out. And when a community can't get the crazy out at the top level then the foundations are probably not that stable either.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  5. Re: Wow, amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The dollar and euro are just as imaginative as the crypto currencies. There is nothing backing their value other then then a very basic system of trust, which works fine until you need a wheel barrow to buy a bread.

  6. Re: Wow, amazing by DRJlaw · · Score: 2

    There is nothing backing their value other then then a very basic system of trust...

    where, backed by police forces, their collective units of government require that 25-50% of the value of their GDP be transferred to them in that currency.

    Yes, my friend, 25-50% of the entire productive capacity of hundreds of millions of people is something.

    which works fine until you need a wheel barrow to buy a bread.

    Any system can be screwed up, but only the government can take your wheel barrow. And that is the fundamental difference between a government-backed currency and cryptocurrency.

  7. Re: Man overboard by jd · · Score: 2

    I dunno, maybe the ship changes size if you solve a complex maths problem.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  8. shocked! by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Funny

    I am shocked, shocked that the bigwigs of fake pyramid scheme "currency" would be anything but sober, respectable fellows.