Heartened to see Taleb taking a skeptical stance on Bitcoin and crypto - last time I looked into it he was a proponent due to its decentralization and existence outside the monoculture of mainstream finance.<p>The sooner we can move past these staggeringly inefficient environment-destroying pump-and-dump schemes the better off we'll all be.
Taleb has absolutely destroyed his credibility by speaking at the "Coingeek" conference and sharing a stage with "Craig Wright"<p><a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Taleb%27ed%20his%20own%20reputation" rel="nofollow">https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Taleb%27ed%2...</a>
I totally agree with Taleb, as any reasonable technical guy around here that is not interested in making a quick buck through a Ponzi scheme. Sorry, for some of them is more than a quick buck, but a day job.
I’m pleased that Taleb doesn’t want to own bitcoin. He’s a millionaire already, and he already has a bank account for a long time, and enjoyed US dominance for all his life. Meanwhile finally El Salvadorian US immigrants will able to pay the rent and food for their parents stuck in El Salvador without a 20% markup 3 months for now.
There seems to be a real under-appreciation by the Hacker News crowd of how profound the use case of cryptocurrencies as simple money is.<p>Perhaps because we have a sample bias towards people who are served adequately by traditional financial infrastructure, and people who are disproportionately preoccupied with blockchain as a potential component of software systems.<p>As an example, most kids in starting school today will probably have years of experience being their own banker, using apps on their phones, before they ever step foot in place which employs bankers. At that point they may not bother, since the cryptocurrency ecosystem will already provide all the same facilities. This is profoundly disruptive.