"We Need To Shut Bitcoin And All Other Cryptocurrencies Down - Here's Why"
That is the title to a forbes article from a year ago that I posted about. Wanted to revisit it as we have seen another year of growth in the crypto space.
I'll revisit a couple items from the piece, but you are welcome to view the article yourself.
Read the full article here: We Need To Shut Bitcoin And All Other Cryptocurrencies Down
Permissionless vs. Permissioned Blockchain
Seems the author's biggest argument was in regard to this. Which is ironic because if he believes in Permissioned Blockchains then why do we need to shut all crypto down?
An except from the article...
The Problem with Permissionlessness
The problem with permissionless, public blockchains is that anybody can sign up as a miner – which means that there’s nothing stopping criminals from doing so.
Not all mining enterprises are criminal, of course. There are plenty of people building mining businesses that are perfectly on the level. But that being said, there are many different criminal pursuits that can leverage mining.
Tax evasion. Money laundering. Funding terrorism or other illegal activity not directly related to cryptocurrency. But the most nefarious of all criminal motivations: illicit cryptomining.
Why Illicit Cryptomining is So Devious
Infiltrating our computers and networks is dead simple – all it takes is one phishing victim, one visit to a malicious web page, or one person downloading a fake app from an app store, and bam! The hacker is inside.
Hackers follow this pattern when their goal is to steal something (in other words, ‘exfiltrate data’). As a result, cybersecurity vendors have been focusing on detecting and disrupting the steps in the Kill Chain.
Cryptomining, in contrast, breaks this mold. The software technically isn’t malware – after all, plenty of people mine cryptocurrency on purpose. There’s no need to find a valuable target, since any computer with processor cycles to spare will do.
And there’s nothing to exfiltrate. As long as the compromised computer can reach the Internet, the threat actors can cash in on their mining activity.
The most devious aspect of illicit cryptomining, however, is the fact that it can run undetected indefinitely. After all, nothing’s being stolen except excess processor cycles and a bit of electricity. In this world of far scarier threats, illicit cryptomining will always rank rather low on the list of priorities.
Until, of course, it brings your entire network to its knees.
The Argument
So essentially his argument is illicit cryptomining is going to tax the overall network to the extent that it brings down the whole thing?
And that there is no way clear way to fight illicit cryptomining since it is not "exfiltrating" anything?
Don't get me wrong - I understand the difference being described between your typical malware and illicit crypto mining.
However, the argument that illicit mining will rank low on the priorities list makes no sense. Because if he is indeed correct and it becomes an issue for the network - then it will become a priority! That is how human nature functions.
Furthermore, malware that looks to steal your info or take over your computer for non-crypto related things, has and always will be an issue. There are plenty of anti-virus softwares and firewalls and companies provided these solutions, but the occurrences still happen.
Thus, I feel like the a similar argument could be made in 1996 about the internet. Being that there is no way we can prevent malware from infecting machines to a 100% success rate.
Only way to do that is to shut down the internet. "Why we need to shut down the internet". Is that article coming next???
Wow, this is a mind blowing article!
You would want to call it just a work of stupidity,
however, there was probably someone paying GOOD money to have this article published.
However, the biggest "lie" in this article is one that almost everyone accepts.
Where people do not realize, because they have never been told, that these two items are larger than they could imagine.
Only the LARGEST banks can handle the money flow from drug money laundering. And all the big names have been fined for it.
And the "terrorism" thing... well, the CIA has been seen to flying C-130s into those countries filled with pallets of 100 dollar bills.
Bitcoin just isn't big enough (yet) to do those kinds of things.
If more criminals actually did start using crypto, then the market would probably more than double very quickly. Right now, a few of the wealthiest criminals could probably buy out the majority of the crypto market. They use banks like everyone else. They just figure out how to get around the rules.
Nah, the banks figure out how to get around the rules.
The banks are not part of it, THEY ARE IT.
The fines they pay are just spreading the wealth. One hand washes the other.
If any serious criminals got into crypto, the market would 1000x overnight.
I am waiting for just one rich person to get on an exchange and buy out the whole thing.
HOW DARE THEY not spy on the people mining their coin! They should provide full bio-metric data for every person that even sniffs the smell of their warm GPU's! Any one of them could be guilty of genocide! So they must all provide a full sleuth of biological samples! Presumption of innocence? PSHAW! They must all face the inquisition and grovel before our overlords!
This guy's a total knob.
This whole idea of turning over everyone's data to a country's law enforcement because some of them might be committing crimes is relatively new...and it hasn't been extremely effective in combating money laundering and terrorism...or it would be far more rare. The criminals just find a way to get around it and everyone is forced to have their financial data exposed to some government entity while the criminals get away with literal murder.
Of course there are criminals that are caught due to banks sharing the data of all their customers...or most of them, but to do that they violated the rights of everyone.
There are still people that believe in privacy and the presumption of innocence, even if the current trend is greater and greater violations of one's personal freedoms under the guise of keeping us safe.
I'd also be interested to know how many innocent people they cause undo stress due to their invasion of their privacy. There are tons of stories of people getting charged with money laundering simply for the "crime" of using cash.
Oh, and he's dead wrong that crypto mining by malware isn't a high priority. Normal malware is bad enough when it comes to the usability of one's computer, just due to poor programming. When malware grinds your computer to a halt, you notice.
I wish I could fucking flag this nunce!
I hope we stop our death spiral towards this totalitarian hell world these idiots would take us to. So many of them don't even recognize that our rights are being eroded every day.
Well said!
How can they shut down what they have no control over? They would have to shutdown the whole Internet... Lol
While they are busy deliberating whether or not to shut down cryptocurrency, I am busy bagging some really cheap altcoins ahead of bull run... I have Veil, Xrp, xlm, Zil, atom and ETN...... What is in your portfolio?
XRP and XLM like you and then steem, neo, eos in terms of alts.