Outstanding crypto-skeptic interview by cypherpunks founder Tim May. A *must-read* if you value a 30-year perspective over the weekly crypto hype. Fairly BTC maximalist, and even connects Satoshi's paper to ancap theory. Quotes below:https://www.coindesk.com/enough-with-the-ico-me-so-horny-get-rich-quick-lambo-crypto/ …
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"I see losses of hundred of millions in programming screw-ups, thefts, frauds, ICOs based on flaky ideas, flaky programming and too few talented people. Sorry if this ruins the narrative, but the narrative is fucked. Satoshi did a brilliant thing, but the story is far from over."
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"Hundreds of companies, thousands of participants & the breathless reporting & hero worship. Much more hype than we saw during the dot-com era. I think far too much publicity is being given to talks at conferences, white papers and press releases. A whole lot of "selling"."
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"There is not much of interest to many of us if cryptocurrencies become Yet Another PayPal, another bank transfer system. What's exciting is the bypassing of gatekeepers, exorbitant fee collectors, middlemen who decide whether Wikileaks (a timely example) can have donations."
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"Money is speech. Checks, IOUs, delivery contracts, Hawala banks, all are forms of money.
@NickSzabo4 has pointed out that bitcoin and some others have most of the features of gold & more: it weighs nothing, it's difficult to seize and can be sent over the crudest of wires."Show this thread -
"Bitcoin is doing what was planned. It can be transferred, saved, used for speculation. This can't be said for 100s of variants where a clear-cut "use case" is difficult to find. Talk of "reputation tokens," "attention tokens," "charitable tokens," these all seem way premature."
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"Not to sound like a Leftist ranting about Big Brother, but any civil libertarian or actual libertarian has reason to be afraid. In fact, many authors decades ago predicted this dossier society, and the tools have jumped in quantum leaps since then."
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"In 1988 I wrote "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," loosely-based in form on another famous manifesto. And based on "anarcho-capitalism," a well-known variant of anarchism. [In 1992] we hatched a plan to call together some of the brightest people we knew to talk about this stuff."
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"Ironically, at that first meeting, I passed out some Monopoly money I bought at a toy store...we used it to simulate what a world of strong crypto, with data havens and black markets and remailers (Chaum's "mixes") might look like."
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"Maybe 20 people wrote 80% of the essays, but there was no real structure...This fits with a polycentric, distributed, permission-less, p2p structure. A form of anarchy, in the "an arch," or "no top" true meaning of the word anarchy."
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"This had been previously explored by David Friedman, in his influential book "The Machinery of Freedom." & by Bruce Benson, in "The Enterprise of Law. [They] studied the role of legal systems absent some ruling top authority."
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"Anarchy is the default mode of most people—to choose what they eat, who they meet, what they read and watch. When some government tries to restrict choices they find ways to route around the restrictions: birth control, underground books, illegal radio, copied cassettes."
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"This [anarchistic legal theory] probably influenced the form of bitcoin that Satoshi Nakamoto later formulated... Is the fluff and hype worth it? Will cryptocurrency change the world? Probably. The future is no doubt online, electronic, paperless."
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"Bottom line, there's way too much hype, way too much publicity and not many who understand the ideas. It's as if people realize there's a whole world out there & start building boats in their backyards. Some will work, but most will either stop building or sink at sea."
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End of conversation
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