The main flaws I reference are:
- Environmental damage due to vast power consumption
- Financial harm to individual investors due to extreme instability and lack of regulation
- Helping organised crime organisations due to untraceable finances
Suggestions for additional flaws of similar importance are welcome.
To resolve YES, it must be shown that all listed flaws have either had their impact reduced >90%, or to within 10% of that by conventional currencies, whichever happens first.
Related questions
@JesWolfe huh that ppssibility strikes me as so wasteful. e-waste, opportunity cost for displacing other non-renewables, etc.
@Stralor hmm, you're right, what would be a good compromise here that rewards switch to renewable energy use but still penalises high use of any energy source?
@Stralor in the meantime I think I'll still count renewable powered crypto then to maintain market consistency, but let me know if you think of something 👍
@TheAllMemeingEye I would go the other way 🤷 Anything based on PoW or PoS has too much indirect cost and hasn't deflected the underlying concern no matter how much greenwashing they do, imo (this is also a commonly held opinion of crypto critics, on whom these requirements are presumably based)
@TheAllMemeingEye How is "most-used" defined? Highest number of transactions? Highest dollar value of transactions? Highest total market cap? Something else?
And over what period are you measuring this?
@DanielTilkin How about "highest percentage of global population using it for at least 1% of their total transactions in 2029-2030"?
@DanielTilkin I'm not sure if there have been any surveys yet, though if by market resolution it's clear that somehow none have ever been done then I guess I'll have to resolve n/a
@TheAllMemeingEye Yeah, if you're relying on a survey to be done that hasn't been done in the past, there's a good chance this would resolve N/A. At the very least, you should establish some sort of a backup if there's no such survey.
@DanielTilkin maybe I'll have to use a Manifold poll if there's no official studies haha it'll be slightly biased due to smaller sample size and community differences but better than nothing I guess unless you have better backup suggestions
@singer Anything that prevents the problem would count as long as it still fits the definition of cryptocurrency. I don't have enough detailed knowledge of cryptocurrency to propose or judge solutions myself, I just know that news articles and YouTube commentators have repeatedly pointed this out as a key disadvantage.
@TheAllMemeingEye The thing is that cryptocurrency is designed to be decentralized, or not controlled by any particular group of people, and is one of its defining features.
A cryptocurrency which fixes all 3 problems you say would be extremely different from a cryptocurrency. A regulated, transparent cryptocurrency? Might as well use cash instead.