Re: <nettime> Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

This reminds me of discourses on theory and practice of communism. One 
good, the other bad.

Bitcoin failed for practical/mundane reason: it ceased to be distributed 
long time ago (today 4 Chinese mints control 50+% of hash power), while 
talking heads deceivingly ignored this, and continued to proselytize the 
initial but long extinct 'distributed' meme. It's more centralized than 
US dollar.

PoW concentration is mandated by its technological nature and there are 
no signs that anything will change any time soon. Every other 'proof' 
introduces either benevolent coordinating authority (which is utter bs), 
or switches CPU for something that has not been demonstrated as 
concentrate-able yet because no one bothered (such as proof of space - 
big disks are naturally distributed ... right.)

There is little more to say. Bitcoin is a big lie, for many too big to 
be acknowledged.

Possible futures and promises will continue to be built on the miserably 
failed premise, with non-working workarounds (But maybe the next 
workaround will work? ... Bitcoin is just the first try, the concept is 
good? ... It's such great idea and must be revisited? ... etc.)

I wonder who will emerge as the Zizek of Bitcoin.

It would make much more sense to dream about possible futures of US 
dollar or Swiss franc, as they have far more solid foundations. It's 
just that consumers of these dreams are too technically illiterate to 
see the fallacy, so Bitcoin is easier sell.


> The author of the avid-reader essay asked 'What if, ten years after it
> was invented, the reason nobody has adopted a distributed ledger at
> scale is because nobody wants it?' One answer: who cares what you want?
> The answer is *a lot of people* — but not for the same reasons you do.
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