Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire
Charlie Stross writes in the article kindly submitted here: "Bitcoin violates Gresham's law: Stolen electricity will drive out honest mining. (So the greatest benefits accrue to the most ruthless criminals.)" I try to follow most of the Bitcoin threads here on HN, but I've missed that argument before. It makes sense that mining-by-theft will eventually displace mining-by-buying-hardware, and that is indeed not a behavior to encourage by the incentives of Bitcoin.<p>"Moreover, The Gini coefficient of the Bitcoin economy is ghastly, and getting worse, to an extent that makes a sub-Saharan African kleptocracy look like a socialist utopia" is an argument that tests people's commitment to neutral principles. If you don't like badly skewed differences in wealth, I suppose you wouldn't like badly skewed ownership of Bitcoin. Or do you like that anyway, as long as you have more Bitcoin than the other guy?