Cryptocurrency’s transparency is a mirage: New research shows a small group of insiders influence its value
Cryptocurrency’s transparency is a mirage: New research shows a small group of insiders influence its value
Crypto-believers often blame greedy financiers as the cause of the Great Recession, but crypto is not immune to these same risks.
TLDR: meme coin rug pulls, among other issues around centralization
Crypto-believers often blame greedy financiers as the cause of the Great Recession in 2008. But we argue that crypto is not immune to these same risks.
Public blockchains operate on a distributed peer-to-peer network. This network provides each user a complete record of transactions that is updated in real time. Users can send digital cash between themselves without relying on a centralized authority.
Since each user has a full record of transactions, the system promises full transparency. But our research demonstrates that public blockchains, and the cryptocurrencies that run on them, do not actually replace trust with transparency.
Speculation, manipulation and market crashes remain very real dangers, regardless of whether the financial system is centralized or decentralized.
Centralization of power in the hands of insiders is still a major issue in the cryptocurrency space. This is particularly an issue for emerging cryptocurrencies like memecoins. Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency named after internet memes or similar jokes. They draw their value entirely from speculation.
By replacing trust with transparency, cryptocurrency promises to put individuals in charge of their monetary transactions.
Our research demonstrates that this is only a partial view. In reality, crypto is dependent on social practices behind the technology.
This article seems to be substituting the fact that crypto is extremely risky as an investment, for an argument that it doesn't provide users with financial autonomy. That's just incoherent, and the research they cite directly contradicts it. The article complains that social factors and devs have influence over the direction of a cryptocurrency, and cite a paper that says, in reference to people involved in Monero development:
The first is that none of the social worlds express a desire to monitor routine transactions, despite the obvious business and tax-collection value of such data.
That is exactly what "putting individuals in charge of their monetary transactions" requires and entails. The values behind the protocol are out in the open, the code is public, the consensus mechanism is public and (sometimes, for the good ones at least) successfully enforces what the particular cryptocurrency is meant to be. It is successful in being beyond various forms of outside control. But I guess the authors think that is a bad thing? That it might somehow be a better investment if it didn't grant people autonomy instead? There's no real organized point here beyond "crypto bad".
Just remember that Satoshi's wallet has almost a million bitcoin in it. Which is worth somewhere around 80 billion USD at the moment.
Well ... DUH. It is a nonexistent "currency" that only has value because people can be tricked into thinking it has value.
Even bitcoin, there are a select few who hold most of the coins. You want a coin like Digibyte. Community owned. Finite amount. Fast speeds.
In crypto, there aren't too many real options. Do your research.
Do your research.
https://www.coinlore.com/coin/digibyte/richlist
1000 people hold 66% of all digibyte in existence lol