• 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.
  • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    But none of them are REAL problems. They all have slow and albeit painful solutions, but they do work.

    “Want to send 10k anonymously”

    Who the fuck wants to send $10,000 to someone in a zero trust scenario?

    Why are you sending 10K to someone without a legal paper trail?

    The banks in China stopped giving people money because they couldn’t. You’re talking about a bank run, and these are societal issues that will still need to be dealt with. You think in a bank run, people will accept your monero?

    You’re just going to be able to survive all societal ills will your buttcoin?

    Most of these problems have already been solved and were short lived.

    A central ledger is how we process transactions as a source of truth. The only reason the largest bitcoin holder isn’t revealed is because they’ve never spent a thing. The second they buy themselves anything, their shipping address is revealed.

    You’re going to what…… buy property with bitcoin so that it’s anonymous despite your name ending up on the land registry?

    Yes, when “money” falls, and the societal collapse happens, everyone’s going to trade in bitcoin.

    Let’s bring it all together…. What are you buying with 10G where you need secrecy from everyone and are comfortable sending the cash in a zero trust environment?

    • parpol@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      You can’t just dismiss all those problems as not real. What are you talking about? Those are as real as any other problem, and affect lot of people. They affect me and are more important to me than what for example any quickpay service solves. And mass surveillance is one of the biggest problems of our time. Dismissing it as a non-issue is unhinged.

      And stop trying to paint verything as criminal. It doesn’t matter what you need to send 10k anonymously for. You could be obtaining your salary and don’t want others to know how much it is or how much you’ve accumulated (except for when you report it yourself, ie taxes). you could be a whistleblower or reporter, or just care about privacy. One should never have to provide a reason to want privacy ever.

      People would accept Monero during a bankrun. In fact, the biggest winners in the China bankrun (besides the corporations) were people who were illegally holding cryptocurrency in China.

      In physical purchases, yes, your name will end up on whatever contract, but “it was paid with Monero” is the only information that will be available. Not what else you’ve been buying or who you got it from. And I already gave an example of where your name doesn’t get linked whatsoever. Mullvad VPN. Any online service has no reason to require your personal information. Cloud storage, subscription fees, software licenses, etc. Not everything is physical packages to your door, and there are also peer to peer crypto-cash exchanges. You can absolutely buy anything anonymously even if you are a bitcoin holder.

      Yes, when “money” falls, and the societal collapse happens, everyone’s going to trade in bitcoin.

      I never said anything about societal collapse. You’re reiterating r/buttcoin arguments against things I’m not saying.

      You don’t need to give a reason to want privacy. If you immediately think “that’s just suspicious criminal behavior” then you’re essentially using “protect the children by banning encryption in messaging applications.” As argument.

      • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        You’re over simplifying my statements to try and support what’s going to be a failed investment.

        Crypto allows you to send 10k internationally with zero trust. That’s insanity.

        You can’t give one reasonable use case for it.

        “You might want your salary to be a secret, until you have to report it for taxes.”

        Sooooo, secret from whom? Because your neighbour and the cops can’t see your salary already. The problem doesn’t exist, unless your goal is tax fraud. But you quickly backed out of that argument because you saw the corner you were painting yourself into.

        I totally agree that privacy is, and should remain an inalienable right, and you shouldn’t need a reason for information to be private.

        Money isn’t information in itself. Who you give it to CAN be, but cash still solves that problem, so the problem doesn’t exist…… Until you’re trying to use cash remotely, but there are no reasonable use cases for needing anonymity in international money transfers. In fact there’s a ton of safety in having banks involved. It’s not 100% secure, but nothing ever is. As opposed to throwing your monero into the wind and hoping the other person ships your illicit items.