Bitcoin and Hormuz

Pro-Bitcoin propaganda makes me so sad.

It chose Bitcoin because every other payment rail has a kill switch controlled by its adversary. When the entire traditional financial system can be weaponized against you, the only viable settlement layer is the one that cannot be. […] It happened because Bitcoin is the only money that works when the most powerful nation on earth is actively trying to prevent you from receiving payment.

Is proof-of-stake really that dead?!

Bitcoin’s critics have spent fifteen years arguing it has no real-world utility. It’s too slow. Too volatile. Too complicated.

Yeah. But above all, we’re arguing against it because of how it has an incredibly disproportionate energy cost and climate impact for its benefits. We hate it because it wrecks the planet. The more people use it in the real world, the worse off we all are.

Nobody uses it for actual commerce.

This isn’t actual commerce.

Bitcoin being used for extortion is not new.

I hate oil so it’s hardly good news that they’re letting it through at a dollar a barrel. Bitcoin is facilitating that doesn’t make me take a kinder eye towards it.

I want fossil fuel regulation, so the fact that Bitcoin is a way to sidestep that is not a dream, it’s a nightmare. (And that’d be a problem even with proof-of-stake.)

Bitcoin