I don't want to see bitcoin die but I just want to see less bullshit.
Even to start the article, everyone knows the market caps are basically bullshit.
Internet Computer (ICP) is the interesting one to me. Zero to 18 billion when it starts in May but obviously there is not 18 billion USD behind that. It is some kind of game being played by the exchanges. There was no equity being traded at the start for an 18 billion dollar valuation. It is all circular.
Just imagine what we could have done technology wise if all the brain power spent on quant finance and crypto now in the last 20 years was spent on something else. It is an absolutely incredible amount of scarce networked brain power time for such little results outside of winning electronic trading games.
> Just imagine what we could have done technology wise if all the brain power spent on quant finance and crypto now in the last 20 years was spent on something else
I think over the last 20 years, more brain power was spent on ad.tech.
So far, cryptocurrencies only caused moderate harm, like wasted electricity and GPU shortages. But I think ad.tech caused way more long-term harm. Death of traditional media, cancel culture, extreme level of political polarization, anti-vax movement, clickbait nature of most content on the internets these days — all these things are directly caused by big tech corporations maximizing their ad revenues while ignoring all the externalities.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 13.0 ms ] threadEven to start the article, everyone knows the market caps are basically bullshit.
Internet Computer (ICP) is the interesting one to me. Zero to 18 billion when it starts in May but obviously there is not 18 billion USD behind that. It is some kind of game being played by the exchanges. There was no equity being traded at the start for an 18 billion dollar valuation. It is all circular.
Just imagine what we could have done technology wise if all the brain power spent on quant finance and crypto now in the last 20 years was spent on something else. It is an absolutely incredible amount of scarce networked brain power time for such little results outside of winning electronic trading games.
I think over the last 20 years, more brain power was spent on ad.tech.
So far, cryptocurrencies only caused moderate harm, like wasted electricity and GPU shortages. But I think ad.tech caused way more long-term harm. Death of traditional media, cancel culture, extreme level of political polarization, anti-vax movement, clickbait nature of most content on the internets these days — all these things are directly caused by big tech corporations maximizing their ad revenues while ignoring all the externalities.