David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of computer language Ruby on Rails, posted a surprising reversal of opinion on hey.com on Monday. It follows a strong trend of dramatic wake-ups that are being experienced all over the world due to Canada’s descent into tyranny.
Hansson describes his previous opposition to crypto. He cites reasons such as “Bitcoin’s grotesque energy consumption, the ridiculous transaction fees and low throughput, the incessant pump’n’dump schemes in shitcoins, the wild price swings in the main coins, the obvious fraud that is Tether, the lack of real decentralization in most of the current web3 infrastructure”, all of which are valid criticisms.
“…my bigger beef was actually fueled by a lack of imagination. I could see the fundamental promise of a digital currency free of banks if you were living in a failing state like Venezuela or an overtly authoritarian one like China or Iran, but how was this relevant to the vast number of Bitcoin boosters living in stable Western democracies governed by the rule of law?”
However, he says that the recent events in Canada have led him to realize he was “too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom to transact that it’s currently our best shot at protecting.”
BItcoin is Crypto, most others, not so much.
Unfortunately, Bitcoin is lumped in with a whole load of crap under the label “crypto”. We need to separate out Bitcoin and a few other currencies. The rest have really nothing at all to do with the original Nakamoto white paper that inspired so many of us. The vast majority of coins and tokens are just a dead weight. People need to make the distinction.
It’s great that so many are coming to realize Bitcoin’s potential and especially influential people such as Hansson. He’s not a clueless politician or an ignorant entertainment performer, he’s an established technician with a body of provably useful work under his belt. His opinion counts for more than that that of the pundits.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-was-wrong-we-need-crypto-587ccb03
