[2019-02-06] Wired - No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology

[gentlemand]

https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-blockchain-technology/

This article was retweeted as 'This is the most concise, comprehensive and clearheaded critique of blockchain and cryptocurrencies that I’ve seen. Most of it isn’t new, but it puts it all in one place, in plain English and comes from someone who is an authority on all of this.'

https://twitter.com/nathanielpopper/status/1093265767783575552

I think he earned an unfollow.

Power waste - check.

Hacking of wallet/exchange = the security of the blockchain itself - check.

'As long as hard forks are a possibility—that’s when the people in charge of a blockchain step outside the system to change it—people will need to be in charge' - check.

Banks are nice and have REAL trust - check.

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[squatter]

The New York Times guy? I never expected much from him. Digital Gold was on my list of books to read some years ago just because it seemed big at the time, but I never got around to it. Sounds like his opinions aren't worth my time...

[gentlemand]

The New York Times guy? I never expected much from him. Digital Gold was on my list of books to read some years ago just because it seemed big at the time, but I never got around to it. Sounds like his opinions aren't worth my time...

Indeed. Digital Gold is really good about the early stages. Then it gets irrelevant when it goes off about Charlie Shrem and the Winkies feuding which no one gives a fuck about any more.

Almost all of his crypto related tweets drip with derision so he must have spunked all his crypto on Satoshidice or something.

[yesyes18]

Lol, another pice of garbage in my perspective. What all these people should know is that people are tired of their FUD sh*t and don't care anymore. They can analyse Bitcoin and blockchain from different perspectives and so on but they ahould also know that blockchain has served its purpose, to remove the middleman. Even tho many companies haven't embraced it, we know for sure that that functionality is valid and works. For security and others, in fact no criminal will use your technology if it's garbage.

And for bank trusts, well, the story is damn ugly in my country. Even kids in my country believe banks are thieves. My government has closed down several banks in the past 2 years.

In fact, the whole cryptospace is tired of these sh*tty old news rebranded each day and cooked up for us. They should let us be.

[joniboini]

Seems like the same narrative being told over and over again. I don't know if the writer was paid or if he doesn't understand blockchain at all. It's quite funny that this article was debunked heavily on blockchain group enthusiast that I follow on Telegram. Might be better if there is somebody who writes an article to rebut this one.

[davis196]

https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-blockchain-technology/

This article was retweeted as 'This is the most concise, comprehensive and clearheaded critique of blockchain and cryptocurrencies that I’ve seen. Most of it isn’t new, but it puts it all in one place, in plain English and comes from someone who is an authority on all of this.'

https://twitter.com/nathanielpopper/status/1093265767783575552

I think he earned an unfollow.

Power waste - check.

Hacking of wallet/exchange = the security of the blockchain itself - check.

'As long as hard forks are a possibility—that’s when the people in charge of a blockchain step outside the system to change it—people will need to be in charge' - check.

Banks are nice and have REAL trust - check.

Power waste-Can be reduced

Hacking issues.-Security can be improved.

Hard forks-WTF?Why hard forks are a problem?We just stick with Bitcoin Core and that's it.

Banks are nice.-Hahahaha....

Conclusion:All those blockchain issues can be solved.

[NeuroticFish]

https://www.wired.com/story/bla bla bla

There are not many newspapers that write articles based on "demand".
Some do it clearly and write clearly that it's a "sponsored post".
Some others don't and usually just get some way betters contracts to show ads.
At least this happens offline. I don't expect online behave better. Well, I had better opinion on Wired. Not anymore.

[1Referee]

Maybe time to stop posting these articles? All you're doing here is that you donate free traffic to a shitty article that shouldn't get any traffic in the first place.

[gentlemand]

Maybe time to stop posting these articles? All you're doing here is that you donate free traffic to a shitty article that shouldn't get any traffic in the first place.

Normally I wouldn't, but the interesting thing about this one is its supposed pedigree yet it's the same old shite.

[Harlot]

I don't know if he is an environmentalist or not but I'm not quite sure how did he come up an relate the trust issue he is trying to build up on blockchain while relating it on using too much energy in the world to work. He is talking like crypto mining is the biggest power consumer of energy in the world yet he fails to point out that there are other things consuming more energy compared to mining. Articles like this shows how nocoiners tries hard on how to make cryptos look worthless in our eyes.

[hatshepsut93]

Power waste - check.

Hacking of wallet/exchange = the security of the blockchain itself - check.

'As long as hard forks are a possibility—that’s when the people in charge of a blockchain step outside the system to change it—people will need to be in charge' - check.

Banks are nice and have REAL trust - check.

There is so many legitimate criticism of blockchain technology, especially when it comes to private implementation, which essentially means using a network protocol as a database, and yet the author choose all the wrong reasons. I guess he just wanted to make a clickbait article for general population, and theoretical analysis of possible attack on distributed networks would only make people yawn, while claims that "Bitcoin causes global warming" or "Bitcoin gets hacked every day" are much more likely to grab someone's attention.

[buwaytress]

Ashamed to say some time back I actually did follow a bit of what Popper used to say, except lately he's proven himself, again and again, just as susceptible to the crap we like to sling back and forth for a fistful of likes. Just proves Ivy League people really aren't all that.

There is so many legitimate criticism of blockchain technology, especially when it comes to private implementation, which essentially means using a network protocol as a database, and yet the author choose all the wrong reasons. I guess he just wanted to make a clickbait article for general population, and theoretical analysis of possible attack on distributed networks would only make people yawn, while claims that "Bitcoin causes global warming" or "Bitcoin gets hacked every day" are much more likely to grab someone's attention.

Right on, hatsheput. I'm the last to say blockchain or Bitcoin's perfect, but there are so many more plain English reasons that are valid criticism of blockchain tech... that even normies discuss on this forum. But Popper's not a normie I guess, and he needs his people to validate him.

[BitHodler]

Normally I wouldn't, but the interesting thing about this one is its supposed pedigree yet it's the same old shite.

I don't think it will ever change. Even if Bitcoin or blockchain in general does everything right, and energy consumption is no longer a problem, there will still be enough nutters thinking that there is something wrong with it.

Gold bugs fit in that category as well. Peter Schiff has been trashing Bitcoin ever since it was hovering around the $100 mark. He knows that Bitcoin is superior in most aspects, but doesn't want to admit it, ever.

I'm sure that he will rather swallow a lump of gold and choke on it than to speak out about Bitcoin in a positive manner. At least, gold has some momentum behind it while he's using Bitcoin's bear market to fuel his anti Bitcoin narrative.

[Carlton Banks]

Wasn't gonna comment, but thought of one that's hard to let go...


Wasn't WIRED part of the "Bitcoin's Dead" hall of fame back in 2014/2015? I wonder which will have the most significant impact on the world, Bitcoin or WIRED magazine.... oh no, that's right Bitcoin won that already

[d5000]

An excellent example of demagogy. The author mixes some criticisms which are referring to real flaws (but mostly solvable) with others that are simply rubbish.

An example:

When that trust turns out to be misplaced, there is no recourse. If your bitcoin exchange gets hacked, you lose all of your money [1]. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you lose all of your money. [2] If you forget your login credentials, you lose all of your money. [3] If there’s a bug in the code of your smart contract, you lose all of your money. [4] If someone successfully hacks the blockchain security, you lose all of your money[5].

- Point 1 hasn't anything to do with Bitcoin, not even with blockchains.
- Point 2 and 3 are problems you will encounter also when operating with other financial (and non-financial) systems. While there may be ways to recover lost money if e.g. your credit card data are stolen, in many cases you won't be able to do that. But people involved in Bitcoin already know that they must protect their keys (and better distribute larger holdings to several key-pairs), so they are more likely to care for that than credit card users. Thus, I guess the "loss rate" at Bitcoin (money lost per user) may be even lower than with traditional credit card systems.
- Point 4 is a real flaw, and that's also the point why Bitcoin doesn't allow turing-complete smart contracts.
- Point 5 is a bit complex: if the "blockchain security" is "hacked" (imagine the well-known bug in 2018 was exploited by miners) then it's true that there is human action needed - in this case, a hard fork. However, if there are enough users to control the process, then it becomes really secure.

Where Schneier is right is that blockchains are social systems and code isn't "everything", but Bitcoin's institutions are pretty bulletproof and if they malfunction - e.g. if a malicious wallet development team implements a backdoor - there are many ways to correct them.

And what the author omits is the utility Bitcoin provides e.g. to the unbanked, people living in countries with untrustworthy (e.g. Venezuela) or very selective/expensive financial systems, and to those using remittances frequently. Lightning isn't even mentioned ...

[magneto]

I'd rather trust the code that is running the bitcoin network than the banks, who can freeze your balance at any time.

Would you rather trust a system where the central entity can very easily abuse its power of currency creation (look at what has happened to Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and many other countries that have unstable governments and central banks), or a decentralised system like bitcoin? Hacks occur not because of the bitcoin network - they happen because of people's lack of diligence to get sufficient security on the device that they store coins on, it's the same as bank hacks.

None of the points that the article mentions are new, they have all been responded to one way or another. Honestly, it has become quite common for mainstream media these days especially within the bear market to spread these types of articles bashing bitcoin to induce panic within the market.

[CoinClarity]

Wasn't gonna comment, but thought of one that's hard to let go...


Wasn't WIRED part of the "Bitcoin's Dead" hall of fame back in 2014/2015? I wonder which will have the most significant impact on the world, Bitcoin or WIRED magazine.... oh no, that's right Bitcoin won that already

Yeah I was about to say, what's up with Wired's multi-year long fascination with smearing bitcoin? I feel like someone at the top is bitter about something... Maybe they paid the WannaCry BTC ransom only to find their computer wasn't de-crypted.

https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-will-burn-planet-down-how-fast/
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/bitcoin-crash-death-spiral-cost-of-mining

Oh, found it:

https://www.wired.com/story/wired-lost-bitcoin/

HOW WIRED LOST $100,000 IN BITCOIN

BACK IN 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, WIRED was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs. We turned on the Roku-looking machine in our San Francisco offices and allowed it to do its job. A small fortune was soon amassed, now worth around $100,000. Then, we lost the money. Forever...

The story is really hard to follow. It sounds like they first decided on destroying the private keys so they couldn't access it, then they were sad after they realized what they did.

So they had 13 bitcoins they had acquired from mining at least a couple blocks? The block reward was 25 BTC at the time. Someone in charge the mining managed to dupe their boss into thinking they had earned less BTC than they actually did. A weird story.

[Carlton Banks]

https://www.wired.com/story/wired-lost-bitcoin/

HOW WIRED LOST $100,000 IN BITCOIN

BACK IN 2013, when you could still mine bitcoins at home, WIRED was sent a small, sleek mining device manufactured by the now-defunct Butterfly Labs. We turned on the Roku-looking machine in our San Francisco offices and allowed it to do its job. A small fortune was soon amassed, now worth around $100,000. Then, we lost the money. Forever...

The story is really hard to follow. It sounds like they first decided on destroying the private keys so they couldn't access it, then they were sad after they realized what they did.

So they had 13 bitcoins they had acquired from mining at least a couple blocks? The block reward was 25 BTC at the time. Someone in charge the mining managed to dupe their boss into thinking they had earned less BTC than they actually did. A weird story.

Oh, so this might be partly saltiness? WIRED magazine got scammed on some BTC by one of their employees (who was clearly morally questionable, but was also smarter than the boss). It makes more sense now.