June 1 Group of technology specialists published an open letter urging the U.S. Congress to confront the lobbies of the cryptocurrency industry and take action against the emerging industry.
The appeal was signed by 26 scientists and employees of technology companies, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google. Politicians have been asked to question the claim of the “unconditional good” that cryptocurrencies bring.
“Not all innovation is undeniably good; not everything we can create has to be created. The history of technology development is full of dead ends, false starts and wrong turns,” the letter says.
The signatories argue that blockchain technology is “ill-suited for almost all purposes that are touted as an existing or potential source of public good.”
According to them, products built on the basis of a distributed ledger have no application in the real economy, but are “a tool for highly volatile and speculative investment schemes.” The authors of the letter believe that this poses a threat to ordinary citizens.
“We recommend [Конгрессу] Ignore the hype around the industry and focus not only on its inherent shortcomings and extreme defects, but also on the list of technological misconceptions on which it is built, ”they pointed out.
The appeal caused a reaction in the community. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin noted that among the authors of the letter is tech journalist Cory Doctorow, who was considered a supporter of blockchain technology.
Buterin agreed that the crypto community has become more hostile in recent years. In his opinion, this is a consequence of the growth of the industry and the contradictions that have arisen in it.
A big difference between the “new idealistic movement” scene 10-15 years ago vs today is that back then it felt possible to be on all the good-guy teams at the same time. Today, much more adversarial thinking and conflict.
I’ve been trying to understand.. where to from here?
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 2, 2022
“The big difference between the ‘new idealist movement’ scene 10-15 years ago and today is that it seemed possible then to be on all the good guys’ teams at the same time. Adversarial thinking and conflict prevail today,” he wrote.
According to Buterin, the emergence of various classes of “normal people” and unscrupulous players is an inevitable part of growth. He noted that the same is happening in the non-financial sectors.
The letter was criticized by University of Wyoming philosophy professor Bradley Rettler. According to him, the authors did not support the presented theses with any evidence.
I’ve now read the tech bros’ anti-crypto letter.
tl;dr When you’re writing an essay, you need to support your claims – the bolder the claim, the more support needed. This letter is long on bold claims and short on support. In short, it’s shockingly bad.
A 🧵
1/24
— Bradley Rettler (@rettlerb) June 1, 2022
“When you write an essay, you need to back up your statements—the bolder the statement, the more support is needed. This letter contains many bold statements and few arguments. In short, it is shockingly bad,” he wrote.
Rattler noted that no one called blockchain technology “unconditionally good,” and none of the key players in the cryptocurrency industry called for anarchy instead of regulation.
The general partner of Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coin Metrics Nick Carter questioned the competence of the authors of the letter.
i dont see how being a mid level engineer at linkedin/hubspot/etc with no track record of working on blockchains confers you any authority, especially when the entire letter is an appeal to authority
— nic carter (@nic__carter) June 2, 2022
“How many of the 26 signers of this letter are true “technical experts”, specifically in the field of blockchain? I don’t understand how being an engineer at LinkedIn/HubSpot/etc with no blockchain experience gives you any authority, especially when the entire email is an appeal to authority,” he wrote.
Recall that in March 2022, eight members of the US House of Representatives in a letter to the head SEC Gary Gensler was pointed out the groundlessness of the investigations that the commission is conducting against cryptocurrency companies.
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