Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

Linux Inventor Says He Doesn’t Believe in Crypto

  • Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
  • Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
  • Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.
YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH ,

I fucking hate that the crypto currency ghouls have captured the word “crypto”. When I first read this I was wondering why in the fuck would Linus not like cryptography. My brain is old and crypto will always mean cryptography.

grrgyle ,
@grrgyle@slrpnk.net avatar

We just got to wait it out. Gods willing, it'll come back to meaning cryptography again.

Syrc ,

Still waiting for the Swastika/Manji to be de-nazified. Probably not gonna see it in my lifetime, unfortunately.

YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH ,

Behind the Bastards had a great few episodes about how a group of indigenous Americans chose to give up their sacred symbol that looked like a swastika because of the Nazis. Pretty sad but i guess fascists ruin everything.

RecluseRamble ,

Absolutely. That's why I always write "crypto-tokens" instead. It's a bit longer and more annoying to write but I feel we owe it to the respectable field of cryptography.

PlexSheep ,

I'm still a student, same for me.

BigDanishGuy ,

I still haven't warmed up to using it for currency either, for me it's a command on Cisco's IOS. Which, BTW, I have to make clear is made by Cisco and make my phone write with a capital i.

I understand that the world evolves, and that languages do as well ... but I do have a problem with the speed which it evolves with, as well as it seems like the ignorant use of existing terminologies, is the main evolutionary factor these days.

Mango ,

It uses cryptography. It's kinda like how electro is a genre of electronic music.

erwan ,

Crypto means cryptography, stop using it to talk about cryptocurrency.

englislanguage ,

Yeah, that headline is very misleading. Crypto(graphy) is essential for the digital world to exist whereas the other stuff is a pyramid & money laundering scheme.

Emmie ,
@Emmie@lemm.ee avatar

It’s useful for buying drugs online on the dark web so I for one like it

datelmd5sum ,

my man

SHOW_ME_YOUR_ASSHOLE ,
@SHOW_ME_YOUR_ASSHOLE@lemm.ee avatar

Which market are people using nowadays? I haven't kept up to speed over the last few years.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

All the fentanyl you can snort.

shortwavesurfer ,

So the equivalent of the population of the United States plus 40% are money-londerers. Because somewhere between five and seven percent of the world's population uses cryptocurrency and that's 400 million to 550 million people.

kaffiene ,

I doubt it

shortwavesurfer ,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1202503/global-cryptocurrency-user-base/

This is more Australia-focused, but https://www.forbes.com/advisor/au/investing/cryptocurrency/cryptocurrency-statistics/

https://www.bankrate.com/investing/cryptocurrency-statistics/

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Increasing demographics might initially be attributed to a rise in the number of accounts and improvements in identification. In 2021, however, crypto adoption continued as companies like Tesla and Mastercard announced their interest in cryptocurrency. Consumers in Africa, Asia, and South America were most likely to be an owner of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in 2022.

That's functionally the nut of it. People in countries that lack a traditional western banking sector but enjoy internet access can piggyback on the network of banks with crypto-interfaces. This is more a consequence of the unregulated wing of the financial sector than an raw utility of cryptocurrency itself.

If WellsFargo won't ratify me as a client, but Coinbase will, I'm stuck dealing in bitcoin simply because I can't get a credit card denominated in USD.

saigot ,

No some of them are the marks.

But if we want to play bad faith statistics games then 5% is roughly the percent of Americans who have gone to prison.

retrieval4558 ,

It's not "misleading," because the vast majority of people understand what the current colloquial use of crypto is.

Screemu ,

Not the nerds on Lemmy.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

A certain irony in a synonym for "secret" being a term everyone's implicitly familiar with.

dQw4w9WgXcQ ,

"Have you invested in crypto?"

Do you think anyone anywhere will misunderstand this as investing in cryptographic research/development?

The mainstream usage of the word isn't always aligned with what is good for society or even the original usage of the word.

englislanguage ,

I guess I'm getting old then 😜

pyre ,

good luck, I'm sure this comment will change how everyone talks from now on.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

Crypto means hidden, stop using it to talk about cryptography.

SOB_Van_Owen ,

It's also sometimes used as shorthand for crypto-orchidism -undescended testicles.

ExFed ,

Ahh, so... crypto, which is based on crypto, can be used to pay for treatments to crypto.

Got it.

erwan ,

Crypto currencies doesn't mean "hidden currency", it means currency based on cryptography.

ExFed ,

Do you mean to say that crypto is based on crypto? Crazy!

TheFriar ,

They meant that choosing one possible definition and saying it’s what the word means is stupid. Words mean pretty much what everyone agrees they mean. Look at all the words that have basically flipped definitions since their inception. Just because the modern derivative of a word means something literally everyone understands but is slightly different than what it used to mean doesn’t mean the oldest answer is the correct one. Unwad your jock.

Mango ,

Did you just defeat your whole original point yourself?

MalachaiConstant ,

Is it not clear which definition of Crypto he's using?

Linus coming out against cryptography seems so unrealistically silly to me that it's not even worth considering.

Magnetar ,

The security of Linux 2000 will be based entirely on steganography, Linux founder announces

suction , (edited )

Never heard it commonly used as a short form for "cryptography". But did hear it commonly used for "Cryptocurrency". Why not let the morons have it? Do you have a scam running that relies on "Crypto" being short for "Cryptography"?
Using "cool" brevs is the mark of the amateur anyway, if someone said "crypto" to me when he meant cryptography, I'd forever judge them as a silly person.

11111one11111 ,

Wait.. whose the moron here? Lol

Natanael ,

Before 2010 it was almost exclusively used to refer to cryptography, outside of some even more niche fields (parts of biology, political sciences, etc)

I run /r/crypto on reddit, for cryptography, and the spam is horrendous and the flood of idiots is never ending

Cosmicomical ,

You are aware that the "crypto" part of cryptocurrency is short for cryptographic, right?

suction ,

No I’m not

Cosmicomical ,

Ah ok, sorry

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Cryptocurrency is a currency based on cryptographic keys.

Kalabasa ,
@Kalabasa@programming.dev avatar

https://cryptoisnotcryptocurrency.com/

aesthelete ,

Ok based upon one dude's opinion I'll purposely create a communication problem between me and anyone who ever tries to discuss this stuff with me.

Or I could just toss this opinion in the garbage...

Decisions decisions

shotgun_crab ,

That's like asking people to say kilograms instead of kilos

KillingTimeItself ,

of course linus torvalds doesn't believe in cryptographic security, have you seen the man talk about other peoples ability to write C?

You think this man considers writing insecure code? That's blasphemy!

remember kids, crypto just refers to cryptography, more broadly in the act of practice.

ExperiencedWinter ,

What are you smoking and where can I get some?

KillingTimeItself ,

i'm smoking the definition of the word.

Furbag ,

I don't believe in crypto either because it's current value is solely derived on how much you can exchange it for real money. Outside of a few edge cases, nobody buys anything with crypto outside of the black market.

I'm sure crypto is a great solution to some finance problems related to centralized banking that I'm too lazy or dumb to care about, but I look at the energy consumption to calculate these massive chains for little tangible benefit, and the scammers and hypemen who are profiting off of other people's hopes and desires to get rich quick on the next big boom, and I can't help but feel like it's an actively harmful element of society. At the very least, whatever regulations are currently in place that are attempting to reign in crypto are insufficient at reducing harm.

Sinthesis ,

Yep. When I see headlines "I made millions of dollars with Bitcoin" I giggle inside.

jh29a ,

Read the actual forum directly if you want to extend your daily fix of other tech people's interesting opinions: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=217627&curpostid=217694

Socsa ,

The value of a crypto token is ostensibly related to the value of the apps which the blockchain supports. It's meant to be both a form of compensation for participating in the network, and as currency for purchasing services from blockchain apps. That's how it derives intrinsic value. So if there is social media which runs on a blockchain, then the hosts within that blockchain get tokens for participating, and eg, advertisements or subscriptions are purchased in tokens. This means those who manage those participant nodes can sell their tokens to those who want to buy blockchain services. As the cumulative value of these services grows, an entire crypto economy is established, and it becomes effectively another form of fiat which has a real exchange rate backed by some real economic activity.

This is how it's supposed to work. The problem is that we just don't have any compelling apps, and the initial speculation has all but ensured that this cannot happen organically because the market cap is already just so much bigger than any realistic medium term outlook for intrinsic value. Bitcoin's blockchain would have to support some form application value which is bigger than the biggest companies in the world, and right now it basically has zero useful applications.

Username ,

Then why does the kernel have a crypto API?

Checkmate, Satoshi Torvalds!

Donjuanme ,

It's as if this headline were written to stir discussion on lemmy.

SolarPunker ,

Cryptos can be a useful technology in certain targeted fields but they are not the solution to capitalism, it is much more important to focus on social issues and mutual aid.

Wilzax ,

If Torvalds was Satoshi he would have done a lot more with those untouched bitcoin than let them sit around for more than a decade

Suavevillain ,
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

He is just like me. I don't mess with the chucky cheese token money.

Alenalda ,

What you don't want to buy my Disney dollers? How about if I throw in some monopoly money?

JackbyDev ,

You know what's hilarious? Disney dollars were more regulated than most cryptocurrencies.

Tachikoma741 ,

Oddly enough lots of people do mess with V-Bucks for FortNite, Riotpoints for League of Legends, and/or CoD points for Call of Duty. Damn you chucky cheese money in my video games!

Veraxus ,

Thank goodness. Such a useless technology.

Scratch that... it's not useless, because it's great for scams and fraud. It's actively harmful.

johny_joe_1975 ,

me too

kuroda ,

Its just a big money laundering scheme

Yawweee877h444 ,

And/or a fucking casino

shortwavesurfer ,

So you are saying more than the population of the United States as money launderers because somewhere between 400 and 550 million people use cryptocurrency. I kind of doubt they are all money launderers.

explodicle ,

Why not? Couldn't crypto be enabling money laundering on a massive scale?

shortwavesurfer ,

This one is a bit old, but... https://medium.com/@MUBC/privacy-coins-debunking-myths-about-illegal-usage-9150c49a31a7

I can't find it at the moment, but I saw a report for 2023 or 2024 that something like 0.4% of all crypto transactions are illicit activity. So that would mean roughly 1.9 million people use it for such activity, which is a far cry from 400 million.

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

A bad one, at that. I think the reason many governments are going with it is because it's far less untraceable than some idiots like to believe.

Lost_My_Mind ,

Like.......he doesn't think it exists?

Imgonnatrythis ,

He believes in nothing!

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • technology@lemmy.world
  • incremental_games
  • random
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •