# Blockchain tech adds no value to games (or to anything else) ## Premise (TLDR/Abstract) This document was made to provide info and real world examples showing how blockchain tech is unfit for any use case. - The added value of a blockchain vs a ledger in form of a simple database, is the capability of being fully decentralized. - Nothing in games or the surrounding tech benefits from being fully decentralized. - All "crypto" technologies, such as NFT/Bitcoin/[Ethereum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum)/Web3/DeFi/DAO, are built on top of the blockchain concept. But since the blockchain part is not needed, the tech stack on top of it can be replaced with simpler and more efficient alternatives, which also use less energy and aren't enabling criminal money transfers. - The simplest example of why you don't want full decentralization of tokens/identifiers for games, such as for assets (models, textures, sounds, etc), is that you don't want to let in certain things into your game, for example illegal or copyrighted works. ([ref](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content) [ref](https://twitter.com/larsiusprime/status/1369332375059054598)) You need at least whitelisting to stay legal, that is gatekeeping, a central authority. So if you need to choose and pick what from a queue of submissions to include in your game, the identifiers for the whitelisted assets might as well be stored in a local database. Note that the actual data usually isn't stored on the blockchain itself, but just an ID or link to where it is stored, so that place would also have to be locked down to prevent tampering, or stored locally. The value added by blockchain is gone, now you can use vastly better alternatives. ## Intro Let me ask you: - Why do you think so many people within gamedev and gamers are speaking up against blockchain products? Aren't you curious? - Do you think it's solely because of electricity usage due to Proof of Work? - Do you actually think gamedevs are afraid of new tech? The same people making new tech every year, improving the gamedev eco system in all various ways, and pushing what is possible to do, to make games attractive and better. - Why should the burden of proof be on the people claiming existing and already working tech that's in use, is worse than some fantasy tech of the future that is solely run on hype and investement money? How about showing even a slightest proof of concept how your buzzword of the week in any way is better. - Have you actually tried using any of these technologies in a meaningful way? Did it improve the games? - Would you ask a proponent of [herbalife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbalife_Nutrition)/[MLMs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing)/[pyramid schemes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme) for investment advice? If not, why would you ask someone with direct monetary interest in your investment, but ignore the people who actually make and play the games and don't have monetary interest in the opposite? - Keep in mind when reading comments, that people promoting blockchain and pyramid schemes in general have everything to win on gaining followers, whereas opponents have no monetary reasons to speak out about this. This is why there's so many bots on twitter and people who recently invested in it so dearly want others to buy in too, so their position gains value. --- A good recap by Stephen Diehl: Lots of people outside of the tech industry follow me now, so figured I'd let you in an open secret that may not be public knowledge. Inside of serious developer circles nobody takes blockchain seriously. We think it's a solution in search of a problem. And a poor one at that. We think the people that promote cryptocoins are in one of four categories: 1. Scam artists. 2. Clueless McKinsey-type opportunists who don't understand software. 3. Libertarian nutjobs obsessed with a fantasy of sound money 4. VCs looking to run pump and dumps for a quick buck Don't take my word, if you know a developer at a big company like Google or Microsoft ask them what they really think. The vast majority of us think that crypto nutters are a plague on our profession and don't reflect our engineering values. [tweet thread of above](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1384412081760448512) --- Typical idiotic troll/bait replies (with no explanation why) you can get online from people who have bought into the hype, possibly with their own money: FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt), NGMI (Not gonna make it, i.e. you won't be profitable if you don't jump on the hype train), NoCoiner (someone who hasn't invested in a pyramid scheme), You can't stop the future (i.e., it's inevitable that everyone will fall for the pressure of pyramid schemes), Have fun staying poor (trying to cause a FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, but in reality, you are already too low down in the pyramid). Each section below contains reasons why it's a bad choice of tech. Of course, much of the tech in these sections is already pointless since it's built on the pointless blockchain tech, but if we'd pretend blockchain had some value, we'd see the tech built on top of it still doesn't hold up. # Understanding Blockchain An understanding of what [blockchain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain) is and what properties it has is vital to knowing what problem it can solve. Blockchain, as described and popularized in the Bitcoin [whitepaper](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) has a number of properties which are presented as features, but are unsuitable for games. Bitcoin is as of 2021 a 13 year old technology, and what popularized blockchain. It's old and far from an emergent technology. Blockchain is basically the same data structure as a Git repository, but since it's fully decentralized with no appointed admin, and used for bitcoin/token transfers, there's a double spending problem that needs to be solved. The [double spending](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-spending) problem, which needs to be solved for for example cryptocurrencies, where a decentralized [consensus]("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science)") needs to be reached, has no theoretical possible solution. This is similar to the [Byzantive Fault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault).
In reality though, there are ways to work around this, one is via [Proof of (useless) Work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_work). To make people contribute to the PoW, they are awarded with cryptocoins; this is what's called mining.
The PoW is making it computationally expensive and slowing down the number of operations per second, making sure it can never scale to be usable for something like a currency.
The PoW work is useless since it calculates nothing with intrinsic value. It just stores hash numbers on a ledger. When the coin is shut down, all that compute power was in doubly pointless. A private blockchain between a few companies, don't require the PoW solution and of course not mining, but can instead use something far more efficient like [Raft](https://raft.github.io) if distributed consensus is required. Even if PoW was used here, it would just be among the handful of companies and negligable, compared to the perpetual doomsday machines of public ledgers like bitcoin and ethereum. Blockchain's characteristics and promises are: An immutable cryptographically signed decentralized public ledger, that can allow for complete strangers to transfer info/coins without trusting each other, and no third party central authority needs to be involved. You could say that blockchain substitutes trust in a central authority for trust in some kind of race and just hoping that everyone involved will keep fighting each other and no-one will ever be an outright winner. Since if 51% of the PoW processing capacity is run by a single miner, or a group/cartel of miners, they can tamper with transactions, and the network can't be trusted. For any real world application, you don't want transactions to be final and immutable, in case of mistakenly sending 100x too much, or if your [wallet is stolen](https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1476683179054358528), or your kid buys too many smurf berries in a game. The only way to revert such a mistake, if you can't convince the receiver of the 100x transfer, is to convince a majority of the "decentralized" mining nodes to roll back / fork the blockchain at a point before the transfer. This obviously goes against the whole point of the cryptocurrencies to begin with. But seeing the biggest winners in these scams are a handful of friends cooperating, this happens sometimes when it is to their advantage. See various hacks/exploits/bugs over the years. Since you need over 50 percent of mining power to do modifications of the blockchain, proponents argue it is very safe, but a [handful of the biggest mining corporations could easily go together and get over 50%](https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1446350899174166528). Remember that before China's ban on mining, 70% of the world's mining was done in China. # Reasons why companies might want blockchain tech They don't know what it is, but heard the hype, and fear of missing out (FOMO). [Game Over Thirty](https://twitter.com/GameOverThirty/status/1477357313027710981) Their venture capitalist (VC) funding the company require it, either out of the above reason, or out of bad intentions of making a quick buck on a pyramid scheme. - Good: you get money for a while. - Bad: the VC is out for a quick buck and will lose interest after a year if their investment didn't 10x. And you're not building anything useful. Ask your VC why they would pick an inferior tech stack that is facilitating money launder for other Ethereum users and tries hard to avoid bank regulations. A workaround could be: Riding the hype wave, advertising the buzzwords, but knowing it's just hype, and internally implementing NFT as DLC (downloadable content) just like how other in-game stores have done it for decades. Then claiming data is stored on a blockchain, when in fact they just use a normal database (db) since it's better in every way. Either your VC is in on the snakeoil, or they aren't aware they're being sold and selling snakeoil.
You tell me which is worse. Tip: You can use this as a reverse VC check, to pick those who know what they're doing. Same goes for employers. # Somewhat reasonable arguments why you'd want to do avoid bank regulations - You want to support a journalist in an oppressed regime, whose assets are frozen. Though, how are they going to use the bitcoin if they can't exchange it first? - You think buying weed should be legal in your area, but it's not. Seems like a crime only you would suffer from. Though consider that buying this, since it's illegal, is most likely sponsoring a criminal gang/network. - You want to pay for an alt.bin usenet service provider. ... Even if above feels okay, it would be an incredibly small fraction of the current transaction volumes on the network, so is it even comparable to all the negativities needed to keep the network running to have these small features? ## Followup claims based on the foundational lie that blockchain added value "NFT/blockchain will allow companies to use each other's assets." They could obviously just provide an API like we've done in the past. There's no chance any company want a fully decentralized ownership of the blockchain, where anyone can add assets, be they copyrighted, explicit porn/violence etc. The companies want the authority to vet anything coming in to be used. So the whole point of decentralization and thus blockchain is gone. "If we don't build it, competitors will do it first." Good, let them fail quicker. "Cryptocurrency market of buying NFTs will make our value go up." (number go up). Consider that the only reason to use these currencies over euro/dollar/fiat currencies is to avoid regulations and taxation. You're also facilitating money laundering, and will soon be subject to regulations and forced to tax on those transactions, or have them outright banned like in many places. # Bans and regulation Regulation of exchanges between cryptocurrencies and real money would make buying and selling less profitable and hopefully reduce a lot of interest in these attempts to avoid taxes. - [Bitcoin ban: These are the countries where crypto is restricted or illegal | Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/09/24/bitcoin-ban-these-are-the-countries-where-crypto-is-restricted-or-illegal2) - [EU will make Bitcoin traceable and ban anonymous crypto wallets in anti-money laundering drive | Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/07/21/eu-will-make-bitcoin-traceable-and-ban-anonymous-crypto-wallets-in-anti-money-laundering-d) - [EU Proposes Ban on Anonymous Crypto Transactions - Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-20/eu-proposes-ban-on-anonymous-cryptocurrency-transactions) - [Russia proposes ban on use and mining of cryptocurrencies](https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1484189028580741121) - [India plans law that will prohibit ‘all private cryptocurrencies,’ with ‘certain exceptions’ | TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/23/india-plans-law-that-will-prohibit-all-private-cryptocurrencies-with-certain-exceptions/) - [H.R.3684 Infrastructure bill passed. Digital Assets are now covered securities. Reporting will be ushered in for all crypto brokers to report to IRS data on activity from 1/1-12/31/23 of all crypto transfers to other non US brokers (private wallets/offshore)](https://twitter.com/jtheaccountant/status/1456835909303869447) - [Swedish Regulators Call for a Ban on Cryptocurrency Mining | Tom's Hardware](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/swedish-regulators-call-ban-crypto-mining) - [Mairead McGuinness. Commissioner for Financial Services. Today the EU Commission adopts measures against money laundering and terrorist financing.](https://twitter.com/McGuinnessEU/status/1417494008037879819) - [Steam has banned all games that utilise blockchain tech, NFTs, or cryptocurrencies from the platform](https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1449050962149187584) - [Bye-bye, bitcoin: It's time to ban cryptocurrencies | TheHill](https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/564696-bye-bye-bitcoin-time-to-ban-crypto-currencies) - [How to Cut Down on Ransomware Attacks Without Banning Bitcoin](https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/banning-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-ransomware-disruption-exchanges.html) - [How to Destroy Bitcoin - stephendiehl](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/destroy-bitcoin.html) - [Company scrip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) (private money tokens) are illegal since 1938. - [The Howey Test](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/howey-test.asp) # Blockchain "Blockchains are a technical solution to a problem that only criminals have: how to do business with someone you don't trust, without a trusted intermediary, and with no-one to adjudicate a dispute or enforce a judgment." [quote](https://twitter.com/desdotdev/status/1444578804819800067) - [Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence • The Register]()https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/30/blockchain_study_finds_0_per_cent_success_rate/ - [Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain | Hacker Noon](https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100) - [IGDA issues call to action on blockchain | GamesIndustry](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-19-igda-releases-blockchain-guidance) - [Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing - The Correspondent](https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing/86714927310-8f431cae) - [A summary of why cryptocurrencies and NFTs are scams](https://antsstyle.medium.com/why-nfts-are-bad-the-long-version-2c16dae145e2) Tim Sweeney: Why do proof of work systems ramp up the difficulty of hash solving while keeping latency constant, instead of keeping difficulty constant while nodes compete to reduce latency? The later seems more useful, and not inflationary. Casey Muratori: The reason is because the only point of proof of work _is_ to keep latency high. You don't actually need it for anything else. The entire point of PoW is just to have there be a single value you can check before validating a transaction block. It's DDoS protection. This is (but one) of the reasons "blockchain" is not a particularly good idea. People want low-latency, high-volume transactions, but the designs of these systems preclude that possibility entirely. They are, by design, not able to do the thing you wanted them to do. [thread](https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1447322234176086019) - Casey Muratori: "I know exactly what crypto _does_. The issue is not that I need the technology explained to me. The issue is that I disagree with the lofty claims about the benefits of blockchain as a consensus as opposed to less costly consensus protocols." [tweet](https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1445300748128972801) [If Cryptocurrency Was Honest. youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUs5y9leCyA) - Cracked # Crypto currencies As each cryptocurrency has a limited number of coins, yet no inherent value backed by a regulatory entity, the only way to profit and increase value of the coin, is to sell it for more than you bought it. And the only reason someone would buy it from you, is that they too would expect to be able to sell it for an even higher price. See [Greater fool theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory) With every new "coin" (cryptocurrency) started, be it bitcoin, ethereum, or one of the 1000+ other ones (cryptobros call the smallest ones "shitcoins"), there are an unknown amount of pre-mined coins kept, in hope of a value increase. Everyone jumping on the new currency early and mines it, or however they acquire it, will be the richest in the currency. Of course, the only way to use the money IRL, the coins will have to be "converted" to real money first, (also known as "fiat" money). The way to convert is to sell it to someone who believes the currency has value. Now, why would he believe it has value? Either the currency is somehow the only way of paying for something, so he will get rid of it again right away, or he is speculating, holding it for a while, hoping the value will go up so he can sell at a profit. Now, what reason would his buyer have? and so on... It acts like a pyramid scheme. "Cryptos are fraudulent because they deceive investors about what they own and what the actual returns are." -Jorge Stolfi - [Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme](https://cryptoschmo.com/2021/12/why-bitcoin-is-worse-than-a-madoff-style-ponzi-scheme/) - "I'm seeing a lot of people FOMO quit their jobs to join "crypto", probably out of some over-romanticized view of what goes on in these projects. Let me illuminate you about what actually happens:" [thread](https://twitter.com/jonsyu/status/1389635626698297344) - "Some pundits compare blockchain to the dot-com bubble or the early internet. This is complete nonsense." [thread](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1390620256838819841) - "Let's talk about the phenomenon of "mathcoins" and how fancy tech and academic obscurantism is used to defraud the public into buying scam crypto investments." [thread](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1391309574762795009) - "Because Bitcoin especially (through the Tether fraud) and cryptocurrency more generally is a pyramid scheme, of course Wall Street and venture capital need it to go mass market. It's the only road to getting out of their current investment at a profit" [thread](https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1399058396913963009) - Stephen Diehl's [blog](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog.html) - "I am often asked if I will “return to cryptocurrency” or begin regularly sharing my thoughts on the topic again. My answer is a wholehearted “no”" -[Jackson Palmer, thread](https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1415353984617914370) - "People ask which descriptor you should use to describe crypto, either a 'pyramid scheme' or a 'Ponzi scheme'. The answer is either because it depends on what facet of the ecosystem you're looking at because it's a multi-layered fraud. (1/)" [thread](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1479802119758794757) # NFT in games -"is it ownership?" -"no, but it represents ownership" Are you going to release a game? It's not going to be on Steam. There are so many reasons to not use NFTs in games. First and foremost, it's based on the pointless and wasteful blockchain [snakeoil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil). It solves none of the hard problems of transferring items between games. Game developers and gamers alike don't want it. See all the backlash from both groups of people when big company execs try to launch them in hope of more money. The tech is pointless in itself, and because it's implemented on top of the pointless blockchain snakeoil.
You can already "own" stuff in games, and even the complete game, see DRM-free [Good old Games](https://www.gog.com).
The amount of freedom the gamedev wants to give their gamers is not restricted by the tech. All popular ways of doing NFT trades are via centralized services, which censor what you can trade and host. So the decentralization point is gone. They're now just legitimizing traffic on the ethereum network, which facilitates unregulated transfer like money laundering. Game design will be affected by people not interested in playing the game for fun, but solely to speculate on the value of assets. Even more so if you go down the play-to-earn dystopia route. File storage.
An NFT contains just an id/link to the asset. The actual file, texture, model etc needs to be stored elsewhere, typically on a non-blockchain storage such as a webserver. If using something like trackerless bittorrent for decentralization, such as the even worse torrent variant [IPFS](https://ipfs.io), [2](https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/), [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System) you'd have to make sure there's always someone seeding, and that it is fast enough to get all parts needed for the game to not have minute long delays when characters pop in.
Even if you cache data in the client, since it's fully decentralized, you can't know ahead of time what assets might have to be loaded in certain parts of the game. Those assets might be on a few currently broken seeders. gg. Legal. With a fully decentralized asset system, you can't comply with age laws and [GDPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation). Ethical. As a developer, will you be able to live with yourself, knowing you contribute vastly more to co2 emissions and criminal transaction. Gamers' reception of announcements. You know you are not going to get gamers who like gaming as an audience, but people who are in it for the speculation. Others will hate your "game" (read casino). If you still decide to do NFTs, make sure the license for whatever software you are making doesn't explicitly forbid being used in blockchain tech, just like many have a clause for not being used for military and weapons engineering. - [why only a dumbass would get into NFT games](https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-you-made-me-do-a-lot-of-people-have-asked-me-to-make-nft-games-and-i-wont-because-i-m-29c7cfdbbb79) and [part 2](https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-i-made-for-you-apparently-while-i-am-not-a-dumbass-many-cryptobros-are-and-i-am-going-f6468c877acc) - [Valve Bans NFT Games, Upsets Nerds Who Love Fake Money](https://www.thegamer.com/valve-bans-nft-games/) - [Valve ban deals blockchain gaming a big blow | Opinion | GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-10-18-valve-ban-deals-blockchain-gaming-a-big-blow-opinion) - [Why we're passing on blockchain pitches | GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-03-16-why-were-passing-on-blockchain-pitches) - [Baseless NFT hype hits a crescendo - but play-to-earn is worth watching | Opinion | GamesIndustry.biz](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-05-baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-crescendo-but-its-play-to-earn-thats-worth-watching-opinion) - [Gaming NFTs Will Never Work](https://www.thegamer.com/gaming-nfts-will-never-work/) - "NFT "race horses" in game A will never have any relevancy in a different game B. Asset uniqueness is easier implemented w/o NFTs." [tweet](https://twitter.com/ChristerEricson/status/1461516657294143495) - "NFTs are harmful to games." game-design [tweet](https://twitter.com/maxnichols/status/1454898935428837378) - What the hell are NFT's? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwMjPWOailQ - [Geoff Keighley: Over 40 titles and no ‘NFT stuff’ from The Game Awards 2021](https://www.destructoid.com/the-game-awards-2021-no-nft-over-40-games-geoff-keighley-live-stream/) - [Gaming Needs To Stop Supporting NFTs](https://www.thegamer.com/gaming-needs-to-stop-supporting-nfts/) - "I want to hear "blockchain is *needed* to do X" and "X improves a specific game design." And none of the NFT-in-games examples so far seem to satisfy this." [tweet](https://twitter.com/bendmorris/status/1477705390343159808) ## NFT in games - backlash Reactions to nft/blockchains in media/twitter are either dislikes from gamers, or bots/cryptobros (notice the twitter profile pictures) trying to pump a new scam/coin they have bought into. - [Peter Molyneux's Next Game Is A 'Blockchain Business Sim' Featuring NFTs Because The Future Sucks](https://kotaku.com/peter-molyneuxs-next-game-is-a-blockchain-business-sim-1848201920) - [French trade union criticises Ubisoft Quartz as "a useless, costly, ecologically mortifying tech"](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-12-16-french-trade-union-calls-ubisoft-nft-scheme-a-useless-costly-ecologically-mortifying-technology) - [Oh lord, Will Wright's new game is built on NFTs](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/oh-lord-will-wrights-new-game-is-built-on-nfts) - [Game Developers Speak Up About Refusing To Work On NFT Games](https://kotaku.com/these-game-developers-are-choosing-to-turn-down-nft-mon-1848033460) Ubisoft had to pull a trailer for their new NFT game because of 95% downvotes - "Introducing Ubisoft Quartz. We're bringing the first energy efficient NFTs playable in a AAA game to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint!" - Ubisoft [tweet] (https://twitter.com/Ubisoft/status/1468264199876923394) - "NFTs come to Ubisoft games, starting with Ghost Recon Breakpoint" [tweet](https://twitter.com/Polygon/status/1468264178460811265) and [web](https://www.polygon.com/22822364/nft-video-games-ubisoft-ghost-recon-breakpoint-free) - [Ubisoft Quartz: Announce Trailer | Ubisoft [NA]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSVoJ0WUQfY) - "Oh hey, look at this amazing Ubisoft Quartz! Let's quickly check the terms to see how amazingly empowered they're making me and how much better than a normal store this is!" [tweet](https://twitter.com/bobbydigitales/status/1468335617796804608) - "Let's see how this is building the #metaverse and what amazing empowerment I'm getting in terms of really owning something!" [tweet](https://twitter.com/bobbydigitales/status/1468335890317512706) - https://legal.ubi.com/ubisoftquartzterms/en-US - "how are the ghost recon NFTs doing? I looked at the 2 3rd party marketplaces the Quartz site links and there seems to be... 15 sales total? 0 in the last day on 1 site? am i reading this right?" [tweet](https://twitter.com/lizaledwards/status/1472778732578299912) - "None of this stuff makes videogames any better. It doesn't make them more fun or interesting. It just turn them into proxy financial instruments, corrupting their core design and exposing them to market forces that will enrich some, but exclude and disappoint most. This sucks." [tweet](https://twitter.com/SkillUpYT/status/1468329437678563329) - "To those asking, no, Ubisoft Quartz will not be appearing at #TheGameAwards" -Geoff Keighley [tweet](https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1468355831880052736) - [Ubisoft has announced plans to create play-to-earn, NFTs, and blockchain games, stating they "want to be one of the key players there"](https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1455127334739132419) more - "From championing diversity to embracing new tech, Stan was 1 step ahead of the curve. To honor his innovative spirit, Stan's 1st Indian hero, Chakra The Invincible, debuts in his own NFT (digital art) collection from 7:30pm PT 12/27-12pm PT 12/29! Sign up: http://chakraverse.io" -Stan Lee [tweet](https://twitter.com/TheRealStanLee/status/1470750431643058181) - "3 hours to go. The first NFT series of a life. My life. http://1kind.com" -Garry Kasparov [tweet](https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1470815858645741573) - Stalker game backpedals due to backlash. [tweet](https://twitter.com/stalker_thegame/status/1471620399997886472) - [Brian Eno on NFTs & Automaticism](https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/brian-eno-on-nfts-and-automatism/) - VISA supports money laundering [tweet](https://twitter.com/VisaNews/status/1430185056098820105) - Scammer lies about NFT in games survey [tweet](https://twitter.com/aeonofdiscord/status/1483910821994500097) # Bitcoin The claimed gains of the irreversible transactions without a trusted thirdparty to handle them is a bug, not a feature. Bitcoin lacks what regulates banks to prevent fraud, like AML (anti-money laundering), KYC (know your customer) and CFT (Combating of Financing of Terrorism). It requires that a majority of involved CPU-power of nodes are good actors, or transactions can be forged. Designed to be computationally expensive. There is no optimization that will save the environment coming. A "Lightning" network on top of bitcoin tries to make it computationally cheap, but removes the decentralization. A feature that is a bug: no inflation, even deflation because of lost wallets. ref: [Japan's decade of deflation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades) ref: [Lessons From Japan's Real Estate Crisis.](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/japan-1990s-credit-crunch-liquidity-trap.asp) Deflation makes people hold on to money since that is the best way to increase value, whereas a healthy economy needs spending. Use cases for bitcoin (and other crypto currencies): - Avoiding Regulations. - Transferring large amounts of money abroad, while avoiding taxes and regulations. - As payment for ransomware. - Paying for illegal services, like weed, weapons, trafficking, murder. - Irreversible transactions. Send your life savings by mistake because you trip on the keypad. No bank to help you out. - Speculation. Hope to sell to a greater fool. The Bitcoin [whitepaper](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) is just 8 pages long and you can skip chapter 11 for this discussion. - [Why the Bitcoin Lightning Network is Satoshi Nakamoto’s Worst Nightmare. | by Mr. Whale](https://cryptowhale.medium.com/why-the-bitcoin-lightning-network-is-satoshi-nakamotos-worst-nightmare-8402be4a4e73) - "Months ago, Twitter said the $BTC Lightning Network tip jar was to be added for everyone. Nope. Turns out LN can’t even handle 0.0001% of users & isn’t legal in 98% of countries…" [tweet](https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1455620849592045568) Defacto [dictator](https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1484658404392157188) of El Salvador forces bitcoin upon the people. Announces it at a bitcoin party in USA.
El Salvador's official wallet software uses a centralized service. [Bitcoin is a Ponzi](https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html) and [Yes, Bitcoin is a Ponzi A Re-Rebuttal](https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-ponzi.html) by [Jorge Stolfi](https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi) (Notice the hilarious variation of the cultist meme profile pics) [Bitcoin ponzi breakdown](https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi/status/1480210692372369412) by Jorge Stolfi. [Bitcoin: Delusions of money - Computerworld](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3648339/bitcoin-delusions-of-money.html) ## Bitcoin - Tether The Tether business is interesting, since it's been used to buy some high percent of all bitcoin in circulation and their backed investments are mostly unknown. Since all other crypto currencies' value seem to follow bitcoin's pretty much one to one, the burst of this company would have a big negative impact on the whole crypto space. - [The Bit Short: Inside Crypto’s Doomsday Machine](https://crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com/the-bit-short-inside-cryptos-doomsday-machine-f8dcf78a64d3) - [Fiat (real money) is bad because the government can just suddenly decide to print more money](https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1467512076390342665) - [Crypto Mystery: Where’s the $69 Billion Backing the Stablecoin Tether? - Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-mystery-where-s-the-69-billion-backing-the-stablecoin-tether) - [Tether Executives Said to Face Criminal Probe Into Bank Fraud - Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-26/tether-executives-said-to-face-criminal-probe-into-bank-fraud) - [nytimes says reputable researchers say that Tether may have been proping up the whole cryptocurrent market](https://twitter.com/BenHouston3D/status/1007013571878932483) - [Crypto Crime Cartel: The end is nigh for Tether - CoinGeek](https://coingeek.com/crypto-crime-cartel-the-end-is-nigh-for-tether/) - [Tether Papers: This is exactly who acquired 70% of all USDT ever issued](https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/) - [Did you know that a legitimate, multi-billion dollar company could not open a bank account, because of some asshole on Twitter spreading "lies" and "FUD"?](https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed/status/1476431469346181129) ## Bitcoin - further reasons it would be insane to accept as legal tender - What if some early adopter shows up 20 years from now when it's the world currency, and he turns out to have 50% of the coins? pre-mined on cpu in a week in the early days. [Bitcoin 'founder' wins right to keep billions of dollars - bbc](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59571277) The > 50% attack will happen. Bugs in the code will be found and exploited. # Ransomware Ransomware payouts are fully relying on a crypto currency network operating. Without bitcoin etc, there would be no way to pay big amounts to the evil-doers. By keeping the networks of unregulated transfers alive, you are vastly simplifying the profitability of making ransomware. - [The Ransomware Problem Is a Bitcoin Problem - Lawfare](https://www.lawfareblog.com/ransomware-problem-bitcoin-problem) by [weaver](https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/1397964355879251980) - [US Treasury says ransomware payouts in 2021 could top entire past decade - The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/15/22728765/us-treasury-ransomware-payout-numbers-reports-2021-first-half-cybercrime) - "Let's talk about why cryptocurrency is the single factor that created the ransomware plague that is ravaging our healthcare system and public infrastructure." [thread](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1395683698859814912) # Stealing Your money isn't safe just because you don't have to trust a bank from not freezing your assets. - [Hackers Steal $600 Million in Crypto From DeFi Site Poly Network](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hacker-steals-600-million-poly-network) - [Laughable followup to above link](https://twitter.com/PolyNetwork2/status/1425123153009803267) # Web 3 and smart contracts The web3 decentralization proposal: - Web1: content distributed to users - Web2: content produced by users and distributed to users - Web3: content produced by users and distributed to users on user controlled platforms But in reality, all "distributed apps" contain centralized elements, and are not user-controlled. The name "web3" was taken in hopes of a free ride on the good reputation of the web (2) name, and to hide the ethereum pyramid scheme that's behind it. "smart contracts" are just pieces of code, which have bugs sometimes, and now you can't patch those bugs, too bad if all your money are stolen via a bad code execution, like clicking "delete" on a jpeg on OpenSea. (yes it happened). - Graveyard of web3 failures [Web3 is going just great](https://web3isgoinggreat.com) + similar site [Rekt](https://rekt.news) - [Web 3 is a scam](https://www.profgalloway.com/web3/) - [The Web3 Fraud](https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/web3-fraud) - "In web3, you own something until a 17 year-old in St. Petersburg borrows your 32 byte private key (shorter than this tweet) for 100ms and steals your entire life savings with no recourse." in response to a shilling cryptobro's "In web2, you are just borrowing things — until the actual owners change their mind." [tweet](https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1470583102699307008) - "I read a blog post on how to make a web3 blog and it sounds like absolute hell." [thread](https://twitter.com/fancysandwiches/status/1468249414598803460) - [Web3 is bullshit](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html) - [Web3 Architecture and How It Compares to Traditional Web Apps](https://thenewstack.io/web3-architecture-and-how-it-compares-to-traditional-web-apps/) - [Is Web3 Really Decentralized? A Look at Alchemy and BitClout](https://thenewstack.io/web3-isnt-fully-decentralized-a-look-at-alchemy-bitclout/) - "The flaw in "Smart contracts" is that they are interpreted and executed by "Overly Literal Genies", or as I like to call them, Computers." [tweet](https://twitter.com/larsiusprime/status/1409594035531096064) and [link](https://cryptoslate.com/safedollar-stablecoin-drops-to-0-following-248000-defi-exploit-on-polygon/) - [web3 is centralized](https://blog.wesleyac.com/posts/web3-centralized) - "Wrote some notes summarizing my first impressions of web3" -Signal App founder [tweet](https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1479567493215637506) and [article](https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html) - [Don’t believe the hype: Web3 is not going to change the world](https://sifted.eu/articles/web3-blockchain-internet-bitcoin-environment/) # Environment No, there are no carbon credits you can buy to go green with "crypto". The emissions will happen anyway, and lots of these companies promising carbon-neutrality if you just give them money are straight out lying. Crypto mining won’t increase the amount of renewables installed because: - nuclear and renewables already have grid priority so get used first, - once renewables are used up, fossil fuel gets used, - nuclear and renewables currently aren’t at the capacity to fulfil daily need so fossil fuels (primarily natural gas) are on grid daily, - renewables will not magically appear to resolve the gap because of the time it takes for a project to become funded and consented, then supply chain in sourcing raw materials, parts manufacture and specialised installation (e.g. offshore wind usually 7-9 years but potentially doable in 5) - the coming increase in renewable energy projects has nothing to do with crapto and little even to do with government policy outside of subsidies and everything to do with maturing (i.e. cheaper and more reliable) technology and private companies seeing enough profit to be made to enter the market - attrition. projects have to be bigger to increase capacity above those projects ending their useful lives, meaning they need to be higher capacity, larger size or using larger or more efficient technology. regardless of all this, hammering the fuck out of the grid to make a number so you can… speculate?… will not drive energy reform, it merely uses what scant resources we have and generate - Even if Crypto builds more renewable it will not result in a net positive. I.e. people won't install more renewable energy than crypto takes because crypto uses it up quicker than you can build --- - "New research & tracker for Ethereum energy + emissions. I estimate that every day Ethereum delays PoS, it emits ~20ktCO2. That’s comparable to two to three coal power plants." [tweet](https://twitter.com/kcimc/status/1466131461526880261) - [Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI)](https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index) - [HERE IS THE ARTICLE YOU CAN SEND TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY “BUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES WITH CRYPTOART WILL BE SOLVED SOON, RIGHT?”](https://everestpipkin.medium.com/but-the-environmental-issues-with-cryptoart-1128ef72e6a3) - [Crypto-assets are a threat to the climate transition – energy-intensive mining should be banned | Finansinspektionen Sweden](https://www.fi.se/en/published/presentations/2021/crypto-assets-are-a-threat-to-the-climate-transition--energy-intensive-mining-should-be-banned/) - [Bitcoin mine cargo container literally incinerating planet](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/03/bitcoin-mine-cargo-container-literally-incinerating-planet/) - [Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible? - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-electricity.html) - "Bitcoin mining consumes roughly the same amount of electricity as Washington state—putting pressure on our power grids and worsening the #ClimateCrisis. We need to protect our planet and crack down on environmentally wasteful crypto mining practices." -[Elizabeth Warren](https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1435347403926822913) - Ubisoft's Blockchain Experiments Are Bad for the Planet - People Make Games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt2kHeqd7AI # DAO [DAOs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization) are usually discord servers where the admins claim to release a decentralized coin which the users can buy, in hope of the value going up. Read that again, there's an admin issuer of a decentralized coin, an issuer... Yes, it's a pyramid scheme. Example of failures, or successes if you're the ICO starter. (Initial Coin Offering) - [Ethereum Executes Blockchain Hard Fork to Return DAO Funds - CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2016/07/20/ethereum-executes-blockchain-hard-fork-to-return-dao-funds/) - [‘Buy the Constitution’ Aftermath: Everyone Very Mad, Confused, Losing Lots of Money, Fighting, Crying, Etc.](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb8av/constitutiondao-aftermath-everyone-very-mad-confused-losing-lots-of-money-fighting-crying-etc) - [Crypto fork uses dog meme to raise $60 million, then the funds go missing](https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/122529/crypto-fork-uses-dog-meme-to-raise-60-million-then-the-money-goes-missing) - "If you're new to pyramid schemes, just give us your money and we'll explain later" [tweet](https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1463642847706370048) reply to "If you're new to crypto, join a DAO. You'll find a community of advocates eager to answer questions and help you along the way. There's starting to be a DAO for just about everything - do a little digger and find your homebase." [tweet](https://twitter.com/Cooopahtroopa/status/1463635027669909504) translated: "You'll find a community of people eager to explain why pyramid schemes are actually good and not illegal" # Cult Crypto-bros are in a cult. You have to be a believer to engage in the scams. - “We aren’t a cult bro.” -[@CryptoWhale](https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1447670910723534852) (picture of avatars with laser shooting from the eys) - "I'll stop being skeptical of crypto when usecase talk go from "will" and "could" to "has" and "does". Crypto became popular around the same time as other technologies like Deep Learning and Android OS which are actually used." [tweet](https://twitter.com/vhranger/status/1452722266056310790) # Metaverse Everyone defines the/a metaverse differently.
Its original true meaning was something just like the Internet, nothing more specific.
Some add that it must be a 3d client instead of a say a web browser, or some other internet tools to link many machines together.
Roblox claim to have their own metaverse
Some have a minimum bar where you can keep using your little avatar 3d model guy between 2 different companies' 3d engines to some extent. One thing we can be sure of though: blockchain helps in no way, but adds a whole bunch of problems. - John Carmack on Facebook's metaverse [short clip](https://twitter.com/hmltn/status/1453885021371183104) full video below. - John Carmack Facebook Connect 2021 Keynote with timestamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo&t=2037s - The Seven Rules of the Metaverse. by [Tony Parisi](https://medium.com/meta-verses/the-seven-rules-of-the-metaverse-7d4e06fa864c) TLDR: the internet is the metaverse. - The problem of moving your avatar model between 2 games. [Dan Lowe](https://twitter.com/danlowlows/status/1480714566082326528) and [Rami Ismail](https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1480404367459168258) - Why Linkin Park's singer fantasy is pure stupidness [tweet](https://twitter.com/xavierck3d/status/1480259615174455298) - ""I want to bring this skin I paid Activision a thousand bucks for into your game so I don't have to pay you for anything" is not the compelling sales pitch to devs you think it is." [tweet](https://twitter.com/ZenOfDesign/status/1481423441060319237) # Speculation There is no intrinsic value stored in blockchain, and no valuable work was done during the Proof of Work process. The "value" is all based on pure speculation, like a pyramid scheme or Multi-level marketing. Learn to HODL (hold, dont sell), is something the cult members shout, in hopes of keeping the pyramid from collapsing. Everything bad is seen as okay collateral, as long as "number go up". (cult speak for increasing value). Examples: - "Yes, it’s a Ponzi scheme. But who cares? So are the dollars in your pocket." -[@CoinDesk](https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1469677423423799302) note: USD is not a ponzi, learn the meaning of words. - [OpenSea NFT platform insider trading rumors are true](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/opensea-insider-trading-rumors-are-true.html) - [‘Meme’ coin seeks to tap crypto craze with London ad barrage | Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/b4da6160-a632-423b-8d8b-ca86489f1d22) - [This Is All Exactly What It Looks Like | Defector](https://defector.com/cryptocurrency-bad-and-weird/) # NFT in art This one is the easiest one to see through. You are not getting anything when paying for an art NFT. NFTs are not legal contracts for ownership or license. They're simply a number associated with some art piece, but not the piece, no Intellectual Property rights, nothing. And only associated on one particular blockchain, and only as long as the pointed to art data remains on the hosting server. NFTs are used to legitimise the cryptocurrency Ethereum and all its illegal use cases. An excuse to get more traffic, where "minting" (read "burning") new NFTs require gas fees, which is paid to miners. If you want to support an artist, just send them the money directly. There's no need to burn the forest and help money laundering, you even save a buck. - [NFT Projects are just MLMs for Tech Elites - Napkin Math](https://every.to/napkin-math/nft-projects-are-just-mlms-for-tech-elites) - "Lets finally talk about how NFTs are a giant scam." -[Stephen Diehl, thread](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1445795667826208770) - A study of 6.1M NFT trades finds a few folks at the center of the market. The top 10% of traders account for 85% of transactions & trade at least once 97% of all assets. 10% of buyer–seller pairs have the same volume as the remaining 90% [tweet](https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1465505077083389960) - NFTs: crypto grifters try to scam artists, again – [Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain](https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-grifters-try-to-scam-artists-again/) - [NFTs Weren’t Supposed to End Like This -The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/) - [Play to Lose — Real Life](https://reallifemag.com/play-to-lose/) - [Investors Spent Millions on ‘Evolved Apes’ NFTs. Then They Got Scammed.](https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dyem/investors-spent-millions-on-evolved-apes-nfts-then-they-got-scammed) - [If NFTs Were Honest. youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG_v4bb2e4k) - Cracked Artists are speaking up against the scam business. Note how they are always harrassed by the crypto-cult people and bots for not joining the pyramid schemes.
Commonly with mantras to cause FOMO, like "have fun staying poor!". - "Hey guys, since many people are asking: just a general disclaimer, I create and sell my assets to fellow game developers to be used in their game projects. I haven’t and don’t plan to take part in any NFT projects in the future. Please respect this decision. Thank you." [@PixElthen tweet](https://twitter.com/PixElthen/status/1458819766899122182) - "Discord’s CEO got thousands of comments about concerns over his NFT decision. Instead of responding to anything critical he liked this one horrible take and logged off." [@CoinersTakingLs tweet](https://twitter.com/CoinersTakingLs/status/1458374831880105984) - "Updated License and README. I DO NOT authorize the project to be used for selling NFTs (read the attached links to learn more about why)." [prettymaps by @marceloprates_ tweet](https://twitter.com/marceloprates_/status/1450136242285383690) [github](https://github.com/marceloprates/prettymaps#note-about-crediting-and-nfts) - "We will block or mute anyone who promotes NFT's or cryptocurrency. We're an ethical non-profit project and cannot condone scams or destroying the environment." [Krita Painting App. tweet](https://twitter.com/Krita_Painting/status/1435896417139183620) - "Nft-artists doing cheap knockoffs of my work, my prints being taken down from redbubble with zero warning because of random copyright claims. What a day on the internet! I don’t know what’s going on but a liberating revolution for digital artists it is not" [Simon Stålenhag deleted tweet](https://twitter.com/simonstalenhag/status/1453952380236558346) - "at first I didn’t really get NFTs but then a guy I used to be friends with in college made a very long LinkedIn post explaining them and now I finally understand why I stopped hanging out with him" [retweeted by Simon Stålenhag](https://twitter.com/_RobertSchultz/status/1482766668329734144) - "every stated advantage of NFTs, dismantled by the very people shilling them: - they were stolen - centralized platforms blacklisted them (they can't be resold), based on the former owner's word - the former owner still uses the avatar they lost, insisting it's still theirs really" [@eevee tweet](https://twitter.com/eevee/status/1455325800291397633) - "I have spent days trying to give the NFT artist community the benefit of the doubt, reading their twitter feeds and blogs and the way they speak to one another and come to the simple conclusion that they absolutely have no idea what an NFT is beyond 'magic pay-me box'" [Dan Olson - thread](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1387946856705978375) - "For days now I've been accepting every spam NFT Discord invite I've received, and it's getting dire" [Dan Olson - thread](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1445986978189639680) - "My daily "I don't want to participate in your NFT business" conversation." [Kenney - tweet](https://twitter.com/KenneyNL/status/1430875420619124740) - "Everyone in NFT Twitter is either too young to have lived through Beanie Babies, or so emboldened by past scams as to believe their exploitation is sanctioned by God." [@SwiftOnSecurity tweet deleted](https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1444029022019760133) but many more similar later. - To mute anyone with Twitter's new NFT profile pic, use Better Tweetdeck [my tweet](https://twitter.com/datgame/status/1477624969559515139) Mona Lisa
Here's a meme blog post that's been going around that helps with understanding how NFTs work: https://i.imgur.com/NJirDQp.png imagine if you went up to the mona lisa and you were like "i'd like to own this" and someone nearby went "give me 65 million dollars and i'll burn down an unspecified amount of the amazon rainforest in order to give you this receipt of purchase" so you paid them and they went "here's your receipt, thank you for your purchase" and went to an unmarked supply closet in the back of the museum and posted a handmade label inside it behind the brooms that said "mona lisa currently owned by jacobgalapagos" so if anyone wants to know who owns it they'd have to find this specific closet in this specific hallway and look behind the correct brooms. and you went "can i take the mona lisa home now" and they went "oh god no are you stupid? you only bought the receipt that says you own it, you didn't actually buy the mona lisa itself, you can't take the real mona lisa you idiot. you CAN take this though." and gave you the replica print in a cardboard tube that's sold in the gift shop. also the person selling you the receipt of purchase has at no point in time ever owned the mona lisa. unfortunately, if this doesnt really make sense or seem like any logical person would be happy about this exchange, then you've understood it perfectly - [Right-clicker mentality](https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/08/tina-v-tapas/#spoilsports-r-us) ## NFT in art - backlash - "Hey @discord what the fuck is this disingenuous survey horseshit you're trying to pull? 0 of the selectable options allow negative response, creating a false idea of broad positivity to your engaging in money laundering scam bullshit tokens." [tweet](https://twitter.com/Gid_Rhys/status/1457795397875691520) - "Discord is pausing its NFT plans after a huge backlash, which included a wave of users cancelling paid subs. I was told the server made of Discord staff & big game studio reps erupted over this, with many threats to take communities elsewhere. Hard to progress facing that." [tweet](https://twitter.com/Toadsanime/status/1458744674366144519) - Browser plugin to autoblock NFT users on Twitter. [github](https://github.com/mcclure/NFTBlocker) - "Twitter is spending engineering resources on this bs while crypto scammers are throwing a spambot block party in every thread" -Elon Musk [tweet](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1484453889671942144) and [tweet](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1484456594775678976) - "head of Twitter Marketing endorsing stealing art from anywhere, minting it, and passing it off as your own just to get a hexagon badge." [tweet](https://twitter.com/GrandMoffJoseph/status/1484445193973555200) # Money laundering Since crypto currencies are still unregulated in many countries, and people are keeping the transfer networks active by speculating on value, it's an effective way to exchange real money and transfer it to avoid legal regulations, taxes, etc. - [Ethereum Pet Rock NFTs Are Selling for More Than $100,000 - Decrypt](https://decrypt.co/78097/ethereum-pet-rock-nfts-selling-more-than-100000) - [$500M CryptoPunk sale was just wash trading, because of course it was](https://protos.com/cryptopunk-500m-wash-trading-crypto-nft-of-course/) A version of this is [wash trading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wash_trade), where people basically buy from themselves, just to launder the money or fake value. "Person A mints NFT.
Person B colludes with A and pays $123k for NFT.
Person A returns the money offline.
Person B sells NFT to Person C for a huge discount of only $100k.
Meanwhile A’s reputation as an artist with a liquid market is solidified." [tweet](https://twitter.com/arush/status/1421416643859828736) - "How to scam people with NTFS and how the IRS is going to ruin it: a beginners guide" -[@Foone thread](https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1457749433844568066) "> We quantify the wash trading on each unregulated exchange, which averaged over 70% of the reported volume."
"I can't overstate how crazy this is. Crypto is mostly just people washing money back and forth with themselves to lure more suckers in." [tweet](https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1461301086363529219), Crypto Wash Trading [article](https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.10984) # Nonsense arguments by snakeoil salesmen - "We need to be open to new tech." Maybe then you should also be open to that people will try to sell you snakeoil. --- - "The NFT representing the idea of ownership is more of a social thing than tech solving it. You have to respect it, like in a society." No need for this tech then. --- - "Kids want to brag to their friends online about expensive hats they've bought using "crypto"." Maybe a better goal is to teach your kids about what matters in life, that at the same time doesn't enable all the bad of "crypto". --- - "But micro transactions/f2p/dlc were bad too / had much protest when new, but look now, they are accepted by the gamers." / "there were other bad things, so now we can do bad too" Those weren't created to facilitate a global criminal network and accelerating global warming. --- - "Look at all these things we want/plan to do to enable these fun things in games". You don't need blockchain for any of that. In fact, it would be far simpler without blockchain. --- - "[Proof of Stake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake) is just around the corner, it will fix your concerns!" Even if it makes that particular coin less electricity demanding, it doesn't solve all the criminal aspects of supporting it.
The hardware that was used to mine this coin will surely be put to use on another coin that is using PoW. Those ASCIs mining don't have any other use cases, and if it was a GPU, it will probably be a hard sell, as it most likely breaks soon from wear and tear.
Bonus tip: don't buy 2nd hand GPUs that have been used for mining. "Don't say "Proof of Stake", use the original term "plutocracy". Way shorter." [tweet](https://twitter.com/tante/status/1485024085373554694) --- - "US Dollar / the money in your pocket is a ponzi too" No, please lookup what a [ponzi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme) is before throwing words around on things you don't like.
TLDR: Real money is backed by the government, and not by gold. Printing money to get a 2% inflation is on purpose, not a problem. --- - "You're just salty you didn't get in early on the pyramid scheme." --- - "Remember when people were sceptical about home computers and the Internet? It's the same thing." Those things have actual utility beyond speculation. NOBODY is falling for these obvious lies of similarity. --- - "Blockchain is in the early stages (13 years and counting), and maybe in 10 years when the problems of today are solved, we will see something useful." How about not fueling this scam business until all the problems are solved then?
Lots of the problems are NOT technical, and new kind of ways will come to scam people, so you might as well jump on those instead later on.
Stop making alibis for something nobody wants with problems nobody in the scam business are interested in fixing. Those problems ARE the features they want. --- - "The interest in crypto blockchain yadyada is growing every year!" Yes, it's sad the interest in pyramid schemes are growing each year, maybe because it's so easy to create one with the blockchain tech, and hard to explain for people why the pointless complexity on top of the scheme is just there to obfuscate the scam. # Good sources of information covering multiple blockchain topics ## Video "Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs" by Dan Olsson. About blockchain, bitcoin, ethereum, smart contracts, web3, NFT, DAO. [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g) Casey Muratori blockchain interviews [youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEMXAbCVnmY5oroBlDDIZMZWzCzrrOtTg) Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens) [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RTC22Z2xI) Good short explanations of all crypto concepts. Pointbite - Technology & Economics [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/SharifAlydotcom/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid) ## Podcast "When The Music Stops" a series of episodes, covering bitcoin, tether, nft, fraud, money laundering. Easy listening. [link](https://anchor.fm/when-the-music-stops) "Crypto Critics' Corner" similar to above link, but a bit harder to follow. [link](https://anchor.fm/cryptocriticscorner/) ## Text - [Stephen Diehl](https://twitter.com/smdiehl) + his [blog](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog.html) - [Aviv Milner](https://twitter.com/aviv_WtMS) - [Awesome critique of crypto/web3](https://github.com/rufuspollock/awesome-crypto-critique) on github. Similar to my page, but just links. - [JWZ](https://www.jwz.org/blog/tag/dunning-krugerrands/) - [Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain](https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/06/27/bitcoin-myths-immutability-decentralisation-and-the-cult-of-21-million/) - [Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, NFTs are fucking terrible](https://luigiblood.tumblr.com/post/675268887631347713/blockchain-cryptocurrency-nfts-are-fucking) # People speak up against the blockchain snakeoil/scam "If a new publishing technology stack works for porn, it works for everything else. If it *doesn't* work for porn, something is broken." [Charlie Stross](https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1466446516353179653) "Crypto mining consumed 8% of Khazak power in 2021, and spiked in November, resulting in an uprising that caused hundreds of deaths and injuries and destabilized a government." [Charlie Stross](https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1479160588676833282) 65daysofstatic [tweet](https://twitter.com/65dos/status/1473616091910139904) "It Takes Two Creator Josef Fares Would Rather "Get Shot In The Knee" Than Include NFTs In His Games" [thegamer](https://www.thegamer.com/it-takes-two-josef-fares-nfts/) JWZ on Mozilla [tweet](https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1478022085737803776) "Keanu Reeves Thinks NFTs Are A Joke" [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2021/12/11/keanu-reeves-thinks-nfts-are-a-joke/?sh=293324071117) [Game Maker's Toolkit](https://twitter.com/gamemakerstk/status/1480852336775999488) "I think any person with a background in distributed computing or with a passing familiarity with consensus algorithms will generally not take “cryptocurrency” seriously" [ninepoints](https://twitter.com/m_ninepoints/status/1384510040917241861) "People that shill crypto-whatevers love to point at all the useful research that’s been produced as a byproduct of a climate altering solution looking for a problem as though that remotely addresses the root concerns" [ninepoints](https://twitter.com/m_ninepoints/status/1384909397944569863) Thread about several bad aspects of NFTs in games [ninepoints](https://twitter.com/m_ninepoints/status/1477588419530289152) Pixel artist [@Sadface_RL](https://twitter.com/Sadface_RL) doesn't do NFT. # Fun To round things off on a lighter note, let's have a laugh at fun projects and fun failures of the scammers. - The Linked List Engineer is not impressed. [How the Doubly Linked List will fix unsolvable problems in video games and the entire world](https://andreas-papathanasis.medium.com/how-the-doubly-linked-list-will-fix-unsolvable-problems-in-video-games-and-the-entire-world-399d0f59431e) - [Clownfield 2042 game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1591520/Clownfield_2042/) - Hating Twitter's NFT profile pic scam [part 1](https://twitter.com/Ethan8bit/status/1484242228625215493) - [part 2](https://twitter.com/Ethan8bit/status/1484244090573185031) - [Crypto Bros Taking Ls](https://twitter.com/CoinersTakingLs) - [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - NFT](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nft) - [A cryptocurrency inspired by ‘Squid Game’ crashes.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/business/squid-coin-crypto-scam.html) - "Man Just 3 More Failed Goals Away From Becoming Crypto Guy" [the onion](https://www.theonion.com/man-just-3-more-failed-goals-away-from-becoming-crypto-1848137775) - [Beanie Babies](https://twitter.com/JackDexterity/status/1468023589786071041) - "web3 is promising because I once wasn’t allowed to squat on 1,200 twitter usernames that I planned to flip for profit" [tweet](https://twitter.com/cabel/status/1471528602072064002) - “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on him not understanding it.” -Upton Sinclair ## Insane shilling of pyramid schemes - "Promising generational wealth through promoting pyramid schemes to under-banked communities" -[yahoo](https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/1480973134618673153) - "The mainstream media is now inviting moon boys on to shill their own shitcoin scams to millions of viewers. This won’t end well." [@CryptoWhale - Fox Business](https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1466894313590337536) - "Matt Damon tells you, you are a pussy if you don't invest in a pyramid scheme" [youtube ad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBC5TVdYT8) - "Kim Kardashian sued in crypto 'pump and dump' case" [BBC News](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59964648) - Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon tries to shill the bored apes pyramid scheme [video](https://twitter.com/etienneshrdlu/status/1485956332989693953) - Totally not a chain letter ponzi [video](https://twitter.com/QTRResearch/status/1485320210525663237) # Final words Although this is in a way not a fixed article, but more a live document, I really don't want to deal with this anymore.
I want to move on and just keep this as a reference for me and anyone who needs to understand or lookup facts and arguments against all the stupidity and lack of understanding out there. Or to press people who should know/do better into confessing they are not doing things out of good intentions, once they've read and understood the situation.