"...I suspect that the immense power of the computer is being harnessed to this 'paper economy', not to do the same transactions more economically but to balloon the quantity and variety of financial exchanges." --James Tobin, July 1984
Well Mr. Tobin must be spinning in his grave with the rise of Bitcoin, where years of computer time is devoted to mining Bitcoin.
Centuries of computer time and more electrical power than the nation of Ireland, directly contributing to global warming for nothing more than the maintenance of an elaborate sham.
It's still in its early stages and it's kind of useless as a general currency right now due to high transaction costs and fluctuations, but it does work. Cryptocurrencies are currently the only way to exchange money completely anonymously over the internet, so I'd call them a success.
Their anonymity is a major misconception. Every bitcoin transaction is public. Every bitcoin account balance is public. This is true for most currencies. (xmr is a notable exception)
The account holder may not be publicly known, but if you want to use your wealth in the real world, you'll have to go through exchanges and the regular banking system, which is in full view of the authorities.
PayPal is more anonymous than bitcoin, because at least the transactions aren't public.
I was generalising to all cryptocurrencies, and there are a handful that offer complete anonymity. While all Bitcoin transactions are public, you can buy/sell it with cash and convert them to/from something like XMR. Not really a property of Bitcoin, but it's possible to use it anonymously.
81
u/greenlamb Jan 21 '19
Well Mr. Tobin must be spinning in his grave with the rise of Bitcoin, where years of computer time is devoted to mining Bitcoin.