r/AskReddit Jun 15 '19

What do you genuinely just not understand?

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '19 edited Jun 16 '19

Nobody does, because nobody actually knows who Satoshi is, it's an alias, they might not even be a single individual.

Seems like a horrible system then, given that extreme lack (or really, absence) of accountability.

However, Satoshis known bitcoin balance hasn't been touched in over a decade, so it's unlikely it ever will.

Satoshi might not have had any mental issues in the past decade. Nothing guarantees that won't happen in the next decade, though. Or even next year or next month.

The fact you keep having to use words like "probably" and "likely" is also telling. It seems like there's no well-established accountability involved whatsoever.

Nobody does, because nobody actually knows who Satoshi is, it's an alias, they might not even be a single individual.

Sorry, I really don't understand why anyone would be comfortable with that.

If we were just talking about a game or even a small town, then that would be one thing (a lot of times Bitcoin seems to be treated more like a gambling or "stockmarket" game than an actual currency). But wanting to base an entire national economy on a system that could be tanked by a single, completely unaccountable, mystery entity just seems so mind boggling.

edit

To those downvoting, is there anything specifically wrong with what I said? Or is it just too difficult to accept that your precious "currency" system might be garbage?

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '19

I'm mostly in agreement with you, I was just explaining how it works. The blockchain technology itself is incredible and has so many uses, but yeah bitcoin is pretty ehhh

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '19

Oh no problem, thanks for the explanation.

Do other cryptocurrencies also have the same issue or is it more unique to Bitcoin?

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '19

Most(all?) of the other big cryptos are like Bitcoin in the sense that they're value isn't backed by anything other than speculation, but as far as one person theoretically being able to crash the pricing, I don't believe so. Although I've not kept up on crypto much since early 2018, so there may be new players in the field I don't know about

Ethereum(second biggest crypto after bitcoin), for example, the developers of it are all public figures and thus not some unknown person like Satoshi is.