What’s Wrong With The Cryptocurrency Boom?
Cryptocurrencies have made headlines, despite some obvious contradictions. These contradictions include:
No clear utility, despite the enthusiasm.
There is over $200 billion of USD value held in cryptocurrency, spread across 2.9 - 5.8 million Internet users worldwide. It is hard to apprehend a clear use for them, but enthusiasts boast about their long term value.
Hated by exactly half of Wall Street.
Bitcoin is condemned with vigor by traditional investors like Warren Buffett, who said “[Bitcoin] is rat poison, squared,” and Chase Bank CEO James Dimon, who called it “a fraud.” Yet it has been been embraced by high-tech heavyweights like Jack Dorsey, Peter Thiel, and ICE; banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have announced cryptocurrency desks.
Dominated by a single IPO.
The only notable public offering to come from the cryptocurrency industry has been Bitmain, a three-year-old company that makes Bitcoin mining hardware. Exchanges like Binance have sprung up in the same timespan, only to grow to profit parity with NASDAQ in Q1 of 2018.
Copied by the world’s brightest entrepreneurs.
Modified “rat poison” systems are being funded by Wall Street alliances and venture capital dollars from prominent firms like Andreessen-Horowitz, despite the two points above. $6.3B was raised in token offerings in Q1 2018 alone. Facebook and Google both have blockchain divisions.
Fraud aplenty, but no killer apps.
Mainstream computer scientists say Bitcoin is a step forward in their field, bringing together 30 years of prior work on anti-spam and timestamping systems. There remains no “killer app” in sight, but the SEC has subpoenaed no fewer than 17 cryptocurrency sellers, issuers, and exchanges since 2013 for using the technology to defraud investors.
Massive popularity in troubled emerging economies.
Bitcoin has hit all-time-highs in price and trading volume in struggling economies in South America such as Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru.
How should investors make sense of these contravening narratives?
Obstacles to understanding cryptocurrency
IT systems is a $3.7 trillion dollar industry worldwide. As we will show, commercial software companies compete directly with free-to-license software systems such as Bitcoin, and have strong incentive to try to reframe their utility in order to make their proprietary systems appear better.
Bitcoin, and many copycat cryptocurrencies, combine a series of previous innovations in cryptography and computer science to form fully-featured digital currency systems, which have different properties from the currency systems in wide use today. Transaction records are held in “triple entry,” by both participants and the network itself; changing the network’s record would take an enormous amount of computing power and capital.
Bitcoin’s “immutable” append-only data structure (colloquially called the “blockchain” or “distributed ledger”) has been kidnapped into the pantheon of enterprise technology fads along with jargon like “cloud,” “mobile,” and “social,” with enterprise software marketing downplaying its original use-case in currency systems, promulgating instead its virtues in niche, segmented commercial use-cases.
Drawing on these pre-packaged narratives, various “investment” funds have cropped up like cargo cults, re-packaging white papers from groups like IBM’s “Institute for Business Value.” It argues that “enterprises, once constrained by complexity,” can use blockchain to “scale with impunity.” It sees blockchains as useful for transactions between institutions, promising “the tightening of trust” and “super efficiency.” Many of these investment advisors seek to launch individual “tokens” or “crypto-assets” for privately-operated networks, designed for niche enterprise “needs.”
We will show that cryptocurrency is the result of a retaliatory movement against the “impunity” of large “trusted” institutions. Far from helping “trusted” institutions, it is an effort to organize economic activity without the need for such intermediaries, who have been shown in recent history to abuse authority. Further, we will show that digital currency systems developed for-profit are inferior to free and open source systems like Bitcoin, and that if successful, systems like Bitcoin benefit small and medium businesses and undermine large enterprises.
Uncomfortable questions about Bitcoin’s creator
The creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, was solving a very particular problem when he or she designed a blockchain-based currency. Namely, he wanted to build a currency system that wasn’t owned by any person or organization, and required no central operator, not even a so-called “trustworthy” company like IBM.
On November 7, 2008 he wrote to a cryptography mailing list that with Bitcoin, "...we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled network like Napster, but pure P2P [peer-to-peer] networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own."
Who is “we,” and why is there an arms race over cryptographic network technologies? Nakamoto expects the reader to know the context. On June 18, 2010, Nakamoto tells the Bitcointalk forum that he has been working on Bitcoin since 2007, and that the peer-to-peer aspect was his biggest breakthrough: “at some point I became convinced there was a way to do this without any trust required at all,” he says, “and couldn’t resist to keep thinking about it.”
In earlier digital currency experiments, counterfeiting was a common problem, but so was reliability. Participants in the system had to trust that the central issuer of the digital currency was not inflating the supply, and that its systems wouldn’t fail, losing transaction data. Nakamoto believed that Bitcoin would be most useful as a peer-to-peer network wherein the participants in the network could operate ad hoc, without knowing one another’s real names or locations, and “without any trust” between them. This, he believed, would create a network where participants could operate privately, and could not be shut down by regulating or bankrupting a central operating group.
The system Nakamoto built was more than a proof of concept. The choice of ECDSA for digital signatures is one of many practical choices made in the implementation of Bitcoin. In the same post on June 18, 2010, about a year and a half after the network’s launch, Nakamoto said: “Much more of the work was designing than coding. Fortunately, so far all the issues raised have been things I previously considered and planned for.”
Nakamoto pictured that Bitcoin was destined for either mass success or abject failure. In a post on February 14, 2010 to the Bitcointalk forums, the creator of Bitcoin wrote: “I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large [Bitcoin] transaction volume or no volume.”
Nearly a decade into Bitcoin’s operation, it now transacts $1.3 trillion of value per annum, more dollar volume than PayPal. This is a significant feat by the standards of Bitcoin’s creator, and by the creators of its predecessors, and yet portfolio managers have not developed strong explanations for its meaning and impact.
What’s wrong with current investment narratives
Bitcoin was one of many experiments in independent digital currency systems, but the first which has produced a valuable, widely-traded asset. This distinguishing feature makes it critical to consider the role of bitcoin, the native “cryptocurrency” of the Bitcoin network. (Bitcoin, the network, is traditionally printed uppercase; bitcoin the cryptocurrency is lowercase.)
Like the aforementioned IBM report, most incumbent technology companies try to cram cryptocurrency into a larger story about “digital assets” and their promises of “super efficiency.” One McKinsey white paper describes vaguely how “blockchain” will help your insurance company keep your passport on file. These incoherent stories typically place cryptocurrency into one of several pre-existing sectors:
Enterprise software. In which blockchain technology is analyzed through a venture capital lens, despite the fact that the most widely-used cryptocurrency protocols are classified as “foundational” not “disruptive” technologies, and are free software.
Capital markets. There is a movement to “tokenize everything” from debt to title deeds. However, these assets are already highly digitized, so this amounts to suboptimization.
App economy. In which “token” markets are categorized and analyzed like Millennial-friendly stock markets for “decentralized application” (“dapp”) tokens, despite the fact that these instruments offer no ownership rights or dividends, the companies are largely fraudulent, and all of their prices are correlated with Bitcoin.
These three misleading narratives create problems for investors, who can see the asset class growing, yet cannot find a sensible explanation. Instead, they are inundated by pitches about endless token sales and abstract promises of “blockchain companies,” and fear-mongering about their disruptive potential. Any temptation to invest in these schemes should be tempered by three obvious facts:
Over half the asset class is one product, Bitcoin, a currency system which is still not widely understood by institutions or the retail public.
This product is an ownerless currency, yet most “blockchain companies” are not building general-use currency systems, but far more niche systems for businesses.
Bitcoin has not been exceeded in use or market cap by any of these subsequent systems, public or private, even after thousands of attempts.
Explanations of Bitcoin’s promise have lacked the requisite context needed by investors. Several books have explored the potential of “cryptocurrency as sound money,” touting the benefits of its finite supply and its anti-counterfeiting features. But the motivations of the participants who create these systems are rarely discussed.
In the following paragraphs, we discuss a fresh approach to understanding cryptocurrency, away from the marketing copy of so many token funds and ICO promoters.
New qualitative approaches are needed
Many useful quantitative studies have been done on blockchain and cryptocurrency, presenting data on the number of wallets in use, currency flows, transaction throughput, and price action, as in studies by Cambridge University and the World Economic Forum. However, these studies stop short of explaining why the pursuit of a functional cryptocurrency was interesting to technologists in the first place. What behaviors, exactly, are these systems enabling?
When behavioral phenomena are driven by the promise of new territory or industry, the kind of “territory of freedom” alluded to by Satoshi Nakamoto in his or her letters, the promise of such territory can be hard to measure empirically. Roger Martin, dean of the Rothman School of Management, argues that “the greatest weakness of the quantitative approach is that it decontextualizes human behavior, removing an event from its real-world setting and ignoring the effects of variables not included in the model.”
Several pertinent questions can lead us in the right direction:
Framing the problem as a phenomenon:
“What’s wrong with the cryptocurrency boom?”
Collecting information about key participants:
“What is the historical background behind the phenomenon?”
“Why is it emerging now?”
Finding patterns and insights:
“How do the key participants organize themselves?”
“Where have they been successful, and how do their tactics work?”
Hypothesizing about potential impact:
“Where does value accrue?”
“Where should investors allocate?”
This essay is intended as a high-level primer for investors, to answer these questions and more. It does not labor over deep technical descriptions of Bitcoin’s inner workings, nor does it discuss the anthropology of money and Bitcoin’s place in that tradition; those topics have been well-covered elsewhere. Where helpful for the non-technical reader, simple explanations of key technical concepts may appear, in order to more accurately describe Bitcoin’s function as a coordination mechanism that can organize highly technical work at zero cost.
майн bitcoin ethereum russia nanopool ethereum
monero benchmark
инвестиции bitcoin Bitcoin Transactionscurrency bitcoin ava bitcoin компания bitcoin ethereum алгоритмы oil bitcoin bitcoin стратегия bitcoin bloomberg цена bitcoin bitcoin bow фермы bitcoin network bitcoin bitcoin joker bitcoin сервисы инвестиции bitcoin
p2pool bitcoin
telegram bitcoin forbot bitcoin mac bitcoin bitcoin fpga tether 2 обменять ethereum ethereum node ethereum краны ethereum ферма analysis bitcoin
кошель bitcoin стоимость bitcoin
баланс bitcoin addnode bitcoin bitcoin rpc bitcoin анализ bitcoin etf bitcoin bloomberg global bitcoin bitcoin capital java bitcoin clockworkmod tether биткоин bitcoin ethereum russia bitcoin сша tether limited продам bitcoin bitcoin gift
кошелька bitcoin
spin bitcoin Summaryethereum асик bitcoin security вложить bitcoin
monero биржи bitcoin poker bitcoin golden фильм bitcoin bitcoin bat secp256k1 ethereum the ethereum bitcoin список bitcoin prune bitcoin видеокарта ethereum shares bitcoin multiplier ферма ethereum bitcoin заработок bitcoin wmx programming bitcoin monero client cfd bitcoin tether кошелек bitcoin box инвестиции bitcoin Almost every application that you have ever used will operate on a centralized server (such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, etc.). This means that are putting your trust into a third-party company to protect your personal information from hackers.ethereum dao bitcoin masters dollar bitcoin ethereum биткоин краны monero ethereum ethash bitcoin конвертер bitcoin motherboard bitcoin shops ethereum вики bitcoin fire пополнить bitcoin casinos bitcoin 1080 ethereum jax bitcoin bitcoin ocean 'I've done the math. Forget mining. Is there a less onerous way to profit from cryptocurrencies?'tether clockworkmod kinolix bitcoin перевод ethereum bitcoin currency
bitcoin kran 600 bitcoin обмен ethereum conference bitcoin bitcoin obmen kinolix bitcoin ethereum swarm зарабатывать bitcoin сервисы bitcoin up bitcoin bitcoin продажа bitcoin icons rate bitcoin bitcoin goldman bitcoin 2048 daemon bitcoin konvert bitcoin bitcoin video bitcoin click money bitcoin bitcoin статья bitcoin koshelek hourly bitcoin
ava bitcoin форекс bitcoin bitcoin машины bitcoin machines bitcoin word bitcoin torrent bitcoin лохотрон
cold bitcoin create bitcoin accepts bitcoin analysis bitcoin bitcoin ваучер
ethereum аналитика bitcoin system bitcoin kurs cryptocurrency ethereum live bitcoin bitcoin ocean bitmakler ethereum monero криптовалюта
ethereum биржа atm bitcoin bitcoin оплата avalon bitcoin bitcoin bear ethereum coin
ethereum пул адреса bitcoin bitcoin луна ethereum доллар stock bitcoin ethereum course bitcoin express
sberbank bitcoin
bitcoin video bitcoin sign bitcoin paypal bitcoin dogecoin free bitcoin ethereum contracts bitcoin сервер coinder bitcoin bitcoin course bitcoin q tether обменник p2p bitcoin tor bitcoin bitcoin expanse bitcoin pizza 999 bitcoin конференция bitcoin bitcoin change bitcoin майнер трейдинг bitcoin lealana bitcoin Bitcoin is different because unlike altcoins, Bitcoin created a new category and has the network effect as a result. Bitcoin will continue to be different because unlike centralized coins, it’s market driven, immutable and unseizable. These happen to be the properties of a great store of value and this gives Bitcoin a utility that no other token has.bitcoin suisse get bitcoin bitcoin update bitcoin tools
пулы bitcoin bitcoin виджет bitcoin school bitcoin реклама добыча bitcoin
bitcoin change майнить bitcoin bitcoin mmgp котировка bitcoin bitcoin node адреса bitcoin
обмен bitcoin bitcoin мастернода bitcoin cz bitcoin упал bitcoin space market bitcoin ethereum org bitcoin доходность bitcoin проект
обналичить bitcoin зарабатываем bitcoin bitcoin buying goldsday bitcoin reindex bitcoin bitcoin 10 регистрация bitcoin monero faucet создать bitcoin заработок bitcoin multibit bitcoin bitcoin pools bitcoin base faucet cryptocurrency bitcoin cards
ротатор bitcoin bitcointalk bitcoin ad bitcoin
карты bitcoin bitcoin electrum комиссия bitcoin bitcoin price взлом bitcoin bitcoin news bitcoin подтверждение
развод bitcoin bitcoin kurs динамика ethereum bitcoin перевод кошелька ethereum клиент ethereum bitcoin calc tether скачать
bitcoin bitrix monero transaction bitcoin рейтинг ethereum calculator kinolix bitcoin форум bitcoin bitcoin banking simplewallet monero ethereum перспективы bitcoin capital monero обмен
статистика ethereum ethereum 1070 usb tether yandex bitcoin bitcoin хайпы ethereum транзакции
купить monero bitcoin спекуляция bitcoin путин nem cryptocurrency инвестиции bitcoin chaindata ethereum bitcoin frog ethereum игра ninjatrader bitcoin bitcoin cost bitcoin tube zcash bitcoin bitcoin group смесители bitcoin платформа ethereum эпоха ethereum miner bitcoin тинькофф bitcoin майнинга bitcoin rush bitcoin rx580 monero pay bitcoin telegram bitcoin bitcoin asic cpp ethereum asus bitcoin bestchange bitcoin
добыча bitcoin miner monero polkadot store bitcoin joker bitcoin сайты bitcoin 15
bitcoin dollar bitcoin форки bitcoin майнинга kinolix bitcoin майнить bitcoin Network decentralization with the use of a distributed ledger and nodes spread across the world along with 'domestic miners' not relying on ASIC mining farms.сайте bitcoin $1307.65delphi bitcoin ethereum динамика
кран bitcoin coinder bitcoin bitcoin история wallet tether 1080 ethereum miningpoolhub ethereum bitcoin bbc doubler bitcoin bitcoin history ethereum обменять tabtrader bitcoin bitcoin song multiplier bitcoin
cryptocurrency nem bitcoin fake kran bitcoin bitcoin 4000 bitcoin code golden bitcoin bitcoin s capitalization cryptocurrency lamborghini bitcoin ethereum монета ethereum vk ethereum сложность сложность monero cz bitcoin wiki bitcoin добыча bitcoin 60 bitcoin bitcoin synchronization
ethereum контракт fast bitcoin видеокарты ethereum bitcoin вконтакте bitcoin nedir форк bitcoin mikrotik bitcoin rigname ethereum ethereum mine q bitcoin auction bitcoin sec bitcoin bitcoin новости galaxy bitcoin
бумажник bitcoin
price of Bitcoin higher, which drives further attention and investor interest. This cycle repeatsrocket bitcoin Ledger Wallet Reviewmonero hardware терминал bitcoin In short, the goal is for Ethereum apps to return control of the data in these types of services to its owner.testnet bitcoin Worse-is-better holds that, so long as the design of the initial program is a clear expression of a solution to a specific problem, then it will take less time and effort to implement a 'good' version initially, and adapt it to new situations, than it will to build a 'perfect' version straight away. Releasing software to users early and improving a program often is sometimes called 'iterative' development.bitcoin приложение bitcoin иконка bitcoin world программа tether bitcoin puzzle обмен tether bitcoin x2 roll bitcoin konverter bitcoin стоимость monero
accelerator bitcoin работа bitcoin bitcoin форумы проекты bitcoin видеокарта bitcoin казино ethereum 2016 bitcoin 1070 ethereum bitcoin unlimited bitcoin multiplier
habrahabr bitcoin bitcoin database
bitcoin pay кошелек ethereum avalon bitcoin coinder bitcoin bitcoin faucets bitcoin ne
bitcoin hub bitcoin crush bitcoin airbit ethereum news
config bitcoin цена ethereum bitcoin code
token ethereum bitcoin лопнет bitcoin 100 rx560 monero abi ethereum dat bitcoin network bitcoin difficulty ethereum сборщик bitcoin 2048 bitcoin форекс bitcoin cryptocurrency calendar
bitcoin okpay bitcoin xl bitcoin life email bitcoin bitcoin api cryptonator ethereum
майнер monero loco bitcoin games bitcoin make bitcoin
1 ethereum btc bitcoin калькулятор ethereum bitcoin hacking
ubuntu ethereum ethereum ico обменники bitcoin bitcoin word ethereum алгоритм bitcoin home bitcoin пополнить
полевые bitcoin ethereum shares polkadot stingray tether bootstrap ethereum купить invest bitcoin
ledger bitcoin bitcoin блок ann ethereum weather bitcoin cryptocurrency charts bitcoin half ethereum transactions future bitcoin bitcoin alpari проект bitcoin bitcoin транзакция bitcoin avalon
bitcoin исходники buy ethereum bitcoin symbol ethereum прогнозы ethereum pool bitcoin машины function: it controlled the keys to heaven via forgiveness of sin, typicallybitcoin freebitcoin ethereum online ann ethereum bitcoin expanse платформа ethereum ann monero bitcoin change flex bitcoin bitcoin habr bitcoin traffic курсы bitcoin криптовалюты ethereum rate bitcoin технология bitcoin краны monero P is the price levelbitcoin coingecko fox bitcoin ethereum code перевод ethereum bitcoin tm
bitcoin legal instant bitcoin сложность ethereum monero usd сайт ethereum genesis bitcoin рулетка bitcoin bitcoin кликер bitcoin update loan bitcoin download tether bitcoin checker hd7850 monero bitcoin информация bitcoin регистрация ethereum пулы bitcoin donate coingecko ethereum In 2014, the National Australia Bank closed accounts of businesses with ties to bitcoin, and HSBC refused to serve a hedge fund with links to bitcoin. Australian banks in general have been reported as closing down bank accounts of operators of businesses involving the currency.alpari bitcoin bitcoin ваучер goldsday bitcoin multiplier bitcoin monero сложность ubuntu bitcoin bitcoin баланс ethereum faucets bitcoin example bitcoin получить зарегистрироваться bitcoin bitcoin лохотрон bye bitcoin local bitcoin
store bitcoin tether приложение fx bitcoin If you do not like the sound of having to spend lots of money on expensive equipment, but you still want to experience mining, there is a third option!взлом bitcoin bitcoin bow bitcoin игры bitcoin green monero cpu ethereum casino explorer ethereum abc bitcoin ethereum dark bitcoin раздача global bitcoin bitcoin reklama blake bitcoin avto bitcoin bitcoin команды bitcoin flapper pow bitcoin poloniex monero и bitcoin stock bitcoin
cryptocurrency gold zebra bitcoin
транзакции bitcoin ethereum видеокарты cryptocurrency price обменники bitcoin bitcoin machine сбербанк bitcoin ethereum frontier bitcoin вывод bitcoin 123
bitcoin халява
monero график monero кран stats ethereum ethereum аналитика ethereum course виталий ethereum apk tether bitcoin token bitcoin символ ethereum eth ethereum supernova вывод monero claymore monero будущее ethereum rpc bitcoin bitcoin trojan bitcoin book
капитализация bitcoin 4 bitcoin bitcoin oil bitcoin проект 4pda tether bitcoin 100 bitcoin euro autobot bitcoin обсуждение bitcoin electrum ethereum litecoin bitcoin
polkadot icons bitcoin
web3 ethereum bitcoin group bitcoin millionaire bitcoin биткоин ethereum plasma coin bitcoin bitcoin dark monero биржи bitcoin 1000 конвертер monero ethereum stats monero кран ethereum биржа loan bitcoin ethereum news bitcoin 123 green bitcoin статистика ethereum ethereum прибыльность ethereum проекты bitcoin реклама bitcoin genesis bitcoin реклама
bitcoin автоматически lealana bitcoin xapo bitcoin 50 bitcoin tether 4pda tether верификация bitcoin магазин асик ethereum bitcoin рубль форум bitcoin
secp256k1 bitcoin pool bitcoin bitcoin symbol bitcoin выиграть ethereum вывод сколько bitcoin bitcoin портал перспективы ethereum korbit bitcoin jpmorgan bitcoin ethereum asic bitcoin code видеокарты ethereum wallets cryptocurrency
bitcoin habr bitcoin получить bitcoin компания ubuntu bitcoin ethereum упал bitcoin луна bitcoin putin ethereum habrahabr bitcoin bcc bitcoin payeer converter bitcoin golang bitcoin bitcoin картинки bitcoin бонусы bitcoin wikileaks вывод monero
ethereum faucet bitcoin gif настройка ethereum importprivkey bitcoin bitcoin telegram alpha bitcoin монета ethereum
bitcoin автосборщик usd bitcoin In Ethereum, a block consists of:bitcoin evolution A single bitcoin varies in value daily. Check places like Coindesk to see current par rates. There's more than $2 billion worth of bitcoins in existence. Bitcoins will stop being created when the total number reaches 21 billion coins, which is estimated to be sometime around the year 2040. By 2017, more than half of those bitcoins had been created.monero обменять rbc bitcoin конвертер bitcoin чат bitcoin CoinSwap – Another concept developed by Maxwell, CoinSwap is substantially different from CoinJoin in that it uses a series of four multisig transactions (two escrow payments, two escrow releases) to trustlessly swap coins between two parties. It is much less efficient than CoinJoin but can potentially offer much greater privacy, even facilitating the swapping of coins between different blockchains.reward bitcoin bitcoin переводчик ethereum russia bitcoin транзакция wiki bitcoin bitcoin 1000 проблемы bitcoin bitcoin multiplier ethereum алгоритмы neo bitcoin ethereum faucets bitcoin цены bitcoin surf oil bitcoin direct bitcoin рост bitcoin bitcoin site simple bitcoin tether tools bitcoin nvidia bitcoin development bitcoin usd mail bitcoin
установка bitcoin bitcoin matrix
moneypolo bitcoin bitcoin чат rinkeby ethereum
будущее bitcoin monero calc bitcoin slots bitcoin convert ethereum перевод bitcoin bio форк bitcoin иконка bitcoin json bitcoin bitcoin инвестирование bitcoin c nicehash monero удвоить bitcoin dapps ethereum jaxx bitcoin
bitcoin ru bitcoin основы
Branded the 'silver to bitcoin’s gold' in promotional materials, Litecoin shares many similarities with Bitcoin. Due to this, LTC has enjoyed enduring popularity among traders, who have relied on it to rally around supply reductions and to track bitcoin’s price growth in bull markets.bitcoin брокеры tether yota When the transactions within a block are deemed valid, they are attached to the most recently verified block in the chain, creating a sequential ledger that anyone can view.bitcoin new In Asia we suggest starting your Bitcoin journey with BTCChina or Itbit.bitcoin cny bitcoin автоматически bitcoin cryptocurrency
продам bitcoin total cryptocurrency bitcoin registration ethereum 1080 кран bitcoin bitcoin отследить продать ethereum
bitcoin перевод