The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment
This was posted in the duplicate thread:<p>================================================<p>There are three types of people who are into Bitcoin:<p>1. People who are in it out of sheer curiosity.<p>2. People who are in it to get rich quick.<p>3. People who have been scammed into it.<p>The people who are in it out of curiosity are the people I don&#x27;t take issue with. At its beginnings, I found Bitcoin to be a curious thing because it was a novel and new idea. However, as things progressed and I learnt more about how it all worked, I saw it as a cumbersome idea that wouldn&#x27;t effectively replace anything and as a result now I&#x27;d rather make jokes about it than take anything about it seriously. I&#x27;ve never spent more than $20 CAD on Bitcoin and I have gotten it all back for that matter too.<p>People who get scammed into Bitcoin typically get scammed either one of two ways: they&#x27;re either being coerced into using it because they&#x27;ve gotten something like malware on their machines (CryptoWall and its variants) or they see it as an investment alternative. The only times I&#x27;ve ever seen non-technical people experience Bitcoin is when I have to tell them that the malware on their computers will only release their unbacked-up data requires a payment using the cryptocurrency to get it all back. And that is really what a non-technical person&#x27;s experience with Bitcoin is going to be: it&#x27;s a way to pay thieves.<p>As for the get rich quick people, they tend to fall into the third category or they themselves are scammers.<p>Right now there are two forces dominating the Bitcoin community: the miners and those who are holding out on whatever magical unicorn rainbows makes the coins have value. The miners don&#x27;t want to see changes to the software because it&#x27;ll hurt their bottom line and the people holding and exchanging it want to see these changes so they can benefit. So as a result, Bitcoin has entered a war of attrition and is starting to show its problems. Mike Hearn&#x27;s leaving is definitely a consequence of this problem.<p>Earlier yesterday [1], I made a quip about how it&#x27;s insulting to suggest that we get those who are &quot;unbanked&quot; as a result of living at no-fixed-address (ie: &quot;homeless&quot;) should eventually move on to Bitcoin as an alternative to mainstream financial institutions. It&#x27;s really for the reasons that Hearn made: would you want to wait a random period of time ranging from maybe a few minutes to a few hours for your transaction to go through? It&#x27;s already insulting enough that they&#x27;re living at the bottom of society, so why would we want to get them to use a bottom-tier financial system? Why not instead suggest making it easier for them to participate within mainstream banking schemes?<p>I anticipate based on my last remarks that the responses to this post will consist of feckless anecdotes and pointless accusations that I and others have a &quot;problem&quot; with Bitcoin. I guess to a certain extent the statement of me having a problem is true, but at the end of the day Hearn is right.<p>Bitcoin is a failure and if you invested into it then you&#x27;re getting what you deserve. If you think that it isn&#x27;t a failure then you obviously didn&#x27;t comprehend Hearn&#x27;s writing.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10898408" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10898408</a>