Technology

59329 readers

5594 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

1599

Linux Inventor Says He Doesn’t Believe in Crypto (u.today)

submitted 5 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

673 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] drathvedro@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

My 2c:

Crypto, however, has no such backing. If Bitcoin goes away for some reason, all you’re left with is essentially digital trash

It's crypto's weakness and it's power is that it's not and cannot be regulated. It acts as a protection against malicious regulations. Of course, it does bear numerous risks and should be approached with extreme caution. But I can literally remember the seed phrase and go through dozen of checkpoints and criminal neighborhoods without any risk of losing any of it, even if they rob me completely naked. It is safe as long as I'm alive and of sound mind, and probably wouldn't really care anymore if I'm not. As far as I know, there's nothing else in the world that could offer such a security level.

The content behind the NFT, whether it’s artwork or whatever, isn’t locked. It’s actually the opposite of locked, it’s publically available on the blockchain, by design

There's not even a guarantee that the content stays up. The receipt just points to some content on some server. Or to ipfs, but ipfs isn't magic, if there isn't anyone on there hosting said content then it is gone. Same problem, but a lot less probable, is that if all nodes on the blockchain go offline, then the NFT itself, along with all currency, is gone.

Pump and dump, for those unaware, is where you artificially inflate the value of something making it seem like a really good deal so everyone buys it, raising demand and prices, then the people who generated the hype dump their investment, cashing out when the value is high, and making off with the money while the value of the investment tanks

Ideally, in a perfect world without hype and idiots, this would be a guaranteed losing scheme. Because to "dump", you'd have to have someone who is ready to buy. If people don't buy, then the perpetrators would have no option but to take the hit themselves. I heard this was the case when somebody managed to short logan paul's shitcoin immediately after the pump. There should be less hype and more of that, and more frequently.