This is the official source for this article – Last Updated 6/17/23

More detailed/recent draft version can be found at: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoReality/wiki/talkingpoints

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has now been around for at least 15 years.

Yet in this time, there’s been a finite number of “talking points” that continually get paraded around social and mainstream media. The vast majority of these “points” are ambiguous and misleading, as well as tired and overused. Let’s go over each and every one:

Tired Crypto Talking Point #1

“It’s decentralized!!!” / “Crypto gives the control of money back to the people”

Just because you de-centralize something doesn’t mean it’s better. And this is especially true in the case of crypto. The case for decentralized crypto is based on a phony notion that central authorities can’t do anything right, which flies in the face of the thousands of things you use each and every day that “inept central government” does for you. Do you like electricity? Internet? Owning your own home and car? Roads and highways? Thank the government.
Decentralizing things, especially in the context of crypto simply creates additional problems. In the de-centralized world of crypto “code is law” which means there’s nobody actually held accountable for things going wrong. And when they do, you’re fucked.
In the real world, everybody prefers to deal with entities they know and trust – they don’t want “trustless transactions” – they want reliable authorities who are held accountable for things. Would you rather eat at a restaurant that has been regularly inspected by the health department, or some back-alley vendor selling meat from the trunk of his car?
You still aren’t avoiding “middlemen”, “authorities” or “third parties” using crypto. In fact quite the opposite: You need third parties to convert crypto into fiat and vice-versa; you depend on third parties who write and audit all the code you use to process your transactions; you depend on third parties to operate the network; you depend on “middlemen” to provide all the uilities and infrastructure upon which crypto depends.
If you look into any crypto project, you will ultimately find it’s not actually decentralized at all. At the beginning/end of every blockchain, is a small group of people who wield disproportionate power and influence and have the ability to restrict who can do what on the system.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #2

“NuMb3r g0 Up!!!” / “Best performing asset of the decade!“

Whether the “price of crypto” goes up, has absolutely no bearing on whether it’s.. a) A long term store of value b) Holds any intrinsic value or utility c) Or will return any value in the future One of the most important tenets of investing is the simple principal: Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. People in crypto seem willfully ignorant of this basic concept.
At best, the price of crypto is a function of popularity, not actual value or material utility. For more on how and why crypto makes a much worse investment than almost anything else, see this article.
The “price of crypto” is a heavily manipulated figure published by shady, unregulated crypto exchanges that have systematically been caught manipulating the market from then to now.
Crypto bros love to harp about “inflation” in the fiat system, yet ironically they measure the “value” of their “fiat alternative” in fiat? It makes absolutely no sense, unless you assume they haven’t thought 2 seconds ahead from what comes out of their mouths.
It’s the height of hypocrisy for crypto people to champion token deflation (and increased prices) while ignoring that there’s over $160+ Billion in unsecured stablecoins being used to inflate the value of their tokens in the crypto marketplace. The “code is law” and “don’t trust – verify” people seem perfectly willing to take companies like Tether and Circle, at face value, that they’re telling the truth about asset reserves when there’s very little actual evidence.
Not Your Fiat, Not Your Value – Just because you think the “value of your crypto portfolio” is worth $$$ does not make that true. It’s well known there’s inadequate liquidity in this market, and most people will never be able to get their money out. So UNLESS/UNTIL you can actually liquidate your crypto for actual real money, you have no idea what you have. You’re “down” until you cash out. Bernie Madoff’s clients got monthly statements saying they were “making money” too.
Just because it’s possible (though highly improbable) to make money speculating on crypto, this doesn’t mean it’s an ethical or reliable technique to amass wealth. At its core, the notion that buying and holding crypto will generate reliable returns is a de-facto ponzi scheme. It’s mathematically impossible for even a stastically-significant percentage of crypto holders to have any notable ROI. The rare exception of those who might profit in this market, do so while providing cover for everything from cyber terrorism to human trafficking.
Want to see a better asset (that actually has utility) that’s consistently out-performed Bitcoin? Here you go. However, this may be another best performing asset.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #3

“InFl4ti0n!!!” / “The dollar will eventually become worthless” / “The dollar has lost 104% of its value since 1900!” / “The government prints money out of thin air”

The government does not “print money indefinitely”… all money in circulation is tightly regulated and regularly audited and publicly transparent. The organization that manages the money in circulation is the Federal Reserve and contrary to what crypto bros claim, they’re not a private cabal – they are overseen and regulated by Congress. And any attempt to put more money in circulation requires an Act of Congress to increase the debt ceiling – it’s neither arbitrary, nor easy to do.
Currency is meant to be spent, not hoarded. A dollar today will buy what it buys. If you hold a dollar for 90 years, of course it won’t buy the same thing decades later (although it might actually be worth significantly more as antique money). You people don’t seem to understand the first thing about how currency works – it’s NOT an “investment!” You spend it, not hoard it!
If you are looking to “invest” you don’t keep your value in cash/currency/fiat. You put it into something that can create value like stocks that pay dividends, real estate, etc. Crypto creates no value and makes a lousy “investment.” It also hasn’t proven to be a hedge against anything, least of all monetary inflation.
Over time more money is put in circulation – you pretend like this is a bad thing, but it’s not done in a vacuum. The average annual wage in 1900 was less than $4000. In 2023 it’s more than $70,000! There’s more people out there and the monetary supply grows appropriately, as does wages. You can’t take one element of the monetary system completely out of context and ignore everything else.
The causes of inflation are many, and the amount of money in circulation is one of the least significant factors in causing the prices of things to rise. More prominent inflationary causes are things like: fuel prices, supply chain issues, war, environmental disasters, pandemics, and even car dealerships.
Sure there may be some nations that have caused out of control inflation as a result of their monetary policy (such as Zimbabwe) but comparing modern nations to third-world dictatorships is beyond absurd.
If bitcoin and crypto was an actually disruptive, stable, useful technology, you wouldn’t need to promote lies and scare people over the existing system. The real reason you do this is because nobody can find any legitimate reason to use crypto in the first place.
Crypto ironically has more inflation in its ecosystem that is even more out of control, than in any traditional fiat system. At least with the US Dollar, money is accounted for and fully audited and it takes an Act of Congress to increase the debt. In crypto, all it takes is a dude printing USDT, USDC, BUSD or any of the other unsecured stablecoins to just print more out of thin air, and crypto-morons assume they’re worth $1 of value. Fools.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #4

“Bitcoin is ‘scarce’ and that makes it valuable“

Even children are aware that scarcity is not a guarantee of value. It’s really a shame that crypto people cling to this irrational argument.
If there only being 21 million BTC were reason for it to be valuable, then why aren’t other cryptos that also share similar deflationary characteristics equally valuable? Why wouldn’t something that is even more scarce than BTC be even more valuable? Because scarcity is meaningless without demand and demand is primarily a function of intrinsic value and utility — not scarcity. See here for details.
Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and no material utility. It’s one of the least capable stores or transfers of value. The only way anybody can extract value from crypto is by coercion — forcefully convincing someone (usually through FOMO or scare tactics) that this is something they need, and it’s often accompanied by unrealistic promises of significant returns. Those returns are mathematically impossible for even a tiny percentage of holders.
Bitcoin also is not scarce. There are multiple versions of Bitcoin, including Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision – both of which are limited to 21M tokens and in many cases are more technologically advanced than BTC. Also, every time there’s a fork of crypto, the amount of tokesn in circulation doubles. Crypto proponents ignore these forks because they don’t play into the “it’s scarce” argument. But any crypto fork absolutely siphons value away from the original version. BTC might be priced higher than BCH, but BCH still holds value as well, and that’s a total of 42M just of those two “bitcoin” versions that are out there, among hundreds of others.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #5

“Well the existing finance system uses a ton of energy too!”

This is called a Tu Quoque Fallacy, aka “Whataboutism”, “Two Wrongs Make A Right” or “Appeal to Hypocrisy” – it’s a distraction from the core argument. Just because you can find something you think is similar/wrong that doesn’t mean your alternative system is an acceptable substitute.
The existing finance system uses a lot of resources but it also performs tons of necessary tasks and it’s the result of centuries of fine-tuning and adaptation. If VISA’s database system was exponentially more wasteful than traditional database systems, you might have a point, but that’s not the case. Existing financial institutions are highly optimized for performance and efficiency.
Often there’s an unfair comparison when citing crypto energy usage against traditional finance energy usage. Crypto proponents will compare bitcoin’s energy footprint to the entire energy footprint of a huge array of financial businesses and services — that are well beyond merely a centralized ledger. It’s a completely unfair comparison.
A more fair comparison between bitcoin and financial transactions would be to compare the cost per-transaction between Bitcoin and Visa which reveals bitcoin transactions are 1.47 milllion times less efficient than Visa.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #6

“Eye Hate Authoritah!” / “You can’t trust the government.” / “Irresponsible Government Will Destroy Everything!“

Crypto bros love to strawman government as if it’s some evil boogeyman that lives to steal all your money and take away your gunz. This is what’s called a “Red Herring” fallacy. A distraction to make their alternative system look like a reasonable option when it really isn’t.
This same “irresponsible government” that you “don’t trust” created the Internet and is primarily responsible for its ongoing, continued operation. It’s funny that your alternative system to government wholly relies on infrastructure the “irresponsible government” has managed so well, you take it for granted.
You don’t trust government with money, but you ignore the millions of things the government does do reliably for you each and every day from running water, schools, roads & bridges, to flood protection, to GPS, cellular, WiFi and even private property rights. So what happens when your mining rig sets your house on fire in #CryptoUtopia? Does an army of de-centralized crypto people show up to put it out? How would that work?

Tired Crypto Talking Point #7

“Crypto allows you to send “money” around the world instantly with no middlemen” / “I can buy stuff with crypto“

Sending crypto is NOT sending “money”. In order to do anything useful with crypto, it has to be converted back into fiat and that involves all the fees, delays and middlemen you claim crypto will bypass.
Due to Bitcoin and crypto’s volatile and manipulated price, and its inability to scale, it’s proven to be unsuitable as a payment method for most things, and virtually nobody accepts crypto.
The exception to that are criminals and scammers. If you think you’re clever being able to buy drugs with crypto, remember that thanks to the immutable nature of blockchain, your dumb ass just created a permanent record that you are engaged in illegal drug dealing and money laundering.
Any major site that likely accepts crypto, is using a third party exchange and not getting paid in actual crypto, so in that case (like using Bitpay), you’re paying fees and spread exchange rate charges to a “middleman”, and they have various regulatory restrictions you’ll have to comply with as well.
The exception doesn’t prove the rule. Just because you can anecdotally claim you have sent crypto to somebody doesn’t mean this is a common/useful practice. There is no evidence of that.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #8

“[Big Company/Banana Republic/Politician] is exploring/using bitcoin/blockchain! Now will you admit you were wrong?” / “Crypto has ‘UsE cAs3S!’” / “Blockchain has potential“

The original claim was that crypto was “disruptive technology” and was going to “replace the banking/finance system”. There were all these claims suggesting blockchain has tremendous “potential”. Now with the truth slowly surfacing regarding blockchain’s inability to be particularly good at anything, crypto people have backpedaled to instead suggest, “Hey it has ‘use-cases’!” Congrats! You found somebody willing to use crypto/blockchain technology. That still is not an endorsement of crypto or blockchain. I can choose to use a pair of scissors to cut my grass. This doesn’t mean scissors are “the future of lawn care technology.” It just means I’m an eccentric who wants to use a backwards tool to do something for which everybody else has far superior tools available. The operative issue isn’t whether crypto & blockchain can be “used” here-or-there. The issue is: Is there a good reason? Does this tech actually do anything better than what we have already been using? And the answer to that is, No.
Most of the time, adoption claims are outright wrong. Just because you read some press release from a dubious source does not mean any major government, corporation or other entity is embracing crypto. It usually means someone asked them about crypto and they said, “We’ll look into it” and that got interpreted as “adoption imminent!”
In cases where companies did launch crypto/blockchain projects they usually fall into one of these categories:
- Some company or supplier put out a press release advertising some “crypto project” involving a well known entity that never got off the ground, or was tried and failed miserably (such as IBM/Maersk’s Tradelens, Australia’s stock exchange, etc.)
- Companies (like VISA, Fidelity or Robin Hood) are not embracing crypto directly. Instead they are partnering with a crypto exchange (such as BitPay) that will either handle all the crypto transactions and they’re merely licensing their network, or they’re a third party payment gateway that pays the big companies in fiat. There’s no evidence any major company is actually switching over to crypto, or that any of these major companies are even touching crypto. It’s a huge liability they let newbie third parties deal with so they have plausible deniability for liabilities due to money laundering and sanctions laws.
Sometimes, politicians who are into crypto take advantage of their power and influence to force some crypto adoption on the community they serve — this almost always fails, but again, crypto people will promote the press release announcing the deal, while ignoring any follow-up materials that say such a proposal was rejected.
Just because some company has jumped on the crypto bandwagon doesn’t mean, “It’s the future.” McDonald’s bundled Beanie Babies with their Happy Meals for a time, when those collectable plush toys were being billed as the next big investment scheme. Corporations have a duty to exploit any goofy fad available if it can help them make money, and the moment these fads fade, they drop any association and pretend it never happened. This has already occurred with many tech companies from Steam to Microsoft. Even though these companies discontinued any association with crypto years ago, proponents still hype the projects as if they’re still active.
Crypto ETFs are not an endorsement of crypto. They’re simply ways for traditional companies to exploit crypto enthusiasts. These entities do not care at all about the future of crypto. It’s just a way for them to make more money with fees, and just like in #4, the moment it becomes unprofitable for them to run the scheme, they’ll drop it. It’s simply businesses taking advantage of a fad. Crypto ETFs though are actually worse, because they’re a vehicle to siphon money into the crypto market — if crypto was a viable alternative to TradFi, then these gimmicky things wouldn’t be desirable.
Countries like El Salvador who claim to have adopted bitcoin really haven’t in any meaningful way. El Salvador’s endorsement of bitcoin is tied to a proprietary exchange with their own non-transparent software, “Chivo” that is not on bitcoin’s main blockchain – and as such isn’t really bitcoin adoption as much as it’s bitcoin exploitation. Plus, USD is the real legal tender in El Salvador and since BTC’s adoption, use of crypto has stagnated. In two years, the country’s investment in BTC has yielded lower returns than one would find in a standard fiat savings account.
- So, whenever you hear “so-and-so company is using crypto” always be suspect. What you’ll find is either that’s not totally true, or if they are, they’re partnering with a crypto company who is paying them for the association, not unlike an advertiser/licensing relationship. Not adoption. Exploitation. And temporary at that.
- We’ve seen absolutely no increase in crypto adoption – in fact quite the contrary. More and more people in every industry from gaming to banking, are rejecting deals with crypto companies.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #9

“Bitcoin is.. [‘freedom’, ‘money without masters’, ‘world’s hardest money’, ‘the future’, ‘here to stay’, blah..blah]“

Whatever vague, un-qualifiable characteristic you apply to your magic spreadsheet numbers is cute, but just a bunch of marketing buzzwords with no real substance.
Talking in vague abstractions means you can make claims that nobody can actually test to see whether it’s TRUE or FALSE. What does it even mean to say “money without masters?” (That’s a rhetorical question.. our eyes would roll out of their sockets if you try to answer that.)
Calling something “The future” or “It’s here to stay” seems to be more of a prayer or self-help-like affimation than any statement of fact.
George Orwell did it better.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #10

“Bitcoin/crypto is a ‘store of value’” / “Bitcoin/crypto is ‘digital gold'” / “Crypto is an ‘investment’“

Crypto’s “value” is unreliable and highly subjective. It cannot be used as a currency or to pay for almost anything in any major country. It has high requirements and risk to even be traded. At best it’s a speculative commodity that a very small set of people attribute value to. That attribution is more based on emotion and indoctrination than logic, reason, evidence, and utility.
Crypto is too chaotic to be any sort of reliable store of value over time. Its price can fluctuate wildly based on everything from market manipulation to random tweets. No reliable store of value should vary in “value” 10-30% in a single day, yet many cryptos do.
Crypto’s value is extrinsic. Any “value” associated with crypto is based on popularity and not any material or intrinsic use. See this detailed video debunking crypto as ‘digital gold’
Even gold, while being a lousy investment and also an undesirable store of value in the modern age, at least has material use and utility. Crypto does not. And whether you think gold’s price is not consistent with its material utility, if that really were the case then gold would not be used industrially. But it is.
The supposed “value” of crypto is based on reports from unregulated exchanges, most of whom have been caught manipulating the market and inflation introduced by unsecured stablecoins. There’s nothing “organic” or “natural” about it. It’s an illusion.
The operation of crypto is a negative-sum-game, which means that in order for bitcoin/crypto to even exist, there must be a constant operation of third parties who must find it profitable to operate the blockchain, which requires the price to constantly rise, which is mathematically impossible, and the moment this doesn’t happen, the network will collapse, at which point crypto will cease to exist, much less hold any value. This has already happened to tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies.
There is not a single example of anything like crypto, which has no material use and no intrinsic value, holding value over a long period of time across different cultures. This is not because “crypto is different and unique.” It’s because attributing value to an utterly useless piece of digital data that wastes tons of energy and perpetuates tons of fraud,makes no freaking sense for ethical, empathetic, non-scamming, non-exploitative, non-criminal people.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #11

“Crypto let’s you ‘be your own bank’” / “You can’t trust the banks/traditional finance system“

Most people don’t want to, “be their own bank” any more than they want to, “be their own dentist.”
The traditional banking system is transparent and well regulated and offers tons of consumer protections, none of which are available in the crypto world. It may be far from perfect, but everything crypto offers is 1000 steps backwards.
Crypto is not “banking.” Crypto, at its greatest actual potential, is merely an alternate wire-transfer system, nothing more.
Traditional banking involves tons of services that the crypto ecosystem cannot provide, and poor copies of this system implemented on-chain, like “staking” and “defi” don’t work anywhere near the way things work in the real world.
In traditional banking, loans are paid in actual money, and use collateral like real estate (which can be owned and used while serving as principal). This isn’t the case in crypto. With crypto, you can only essentially borrow less than what you have already, which makes absolutely no sense — loans are for people who don’t have cash in the first place!
In the real banking world, loans stimulate the economy: they create jobs, they build housing, they turn arid land into productive agricultural plots, they help people get degrees and skills, etc. Loans made by banks create value.
In the crypto world, loans don’t serve the same purpose. They’re usually just vehicles for highly-leveraged gambling and speculation on the market – none of which creates any economic growth.
Even if bitcoin were to become ubiquitous, its deflationary nature would make the currency very difficult to be used to stimulate the economy: there would be a finite amount of bitcoin available, and interest rates on loaning it would go up and up, ultimately resulting in only the rich being able to afford to take out loans, which again, makes no sense.

Even mentioning this talking point reveals that the person making the claim has no actual understanding of how modern banking systems work.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #12

“$$$$ ‘Market Cap!’” / “There’s $x million in this project!“

The term “market cap” is one appropriated from the stock market and is misleading and erroneous to apply to crypto.
Traditional market capitalization translates to “the value of a company as a function of its share price.” This figure only has meaning if the share price is properly valued based on the actual value of the company. There are standard established formulas for determining what a company is worth by adding up its assets and income and subtracting its liabilities. Then to determine whether a share price is over or under-inflated, you divide that figure by the number of outstanding shares.
Market capitalization when shares are not manipulated, should settle at the true value of the company. In cases where shares are manipulated (TSLA is a good example), its “market cap” is unrealistic. In situations where insiders control a large portion of shares, they can easily manipulate the stock price, resulting in the appearance of a high net value that doesn’t jive with reality.
Cryptocurrencies, by their nature, have no intrinsic value. Crypto doesn’t create income; it doesn’t represent real-world assets. So it has absolutely no base value in the first place by which to calculate valuation and market capitalization. In crypto, people simply multiply the coin price x the number of coins minted and declare that’s the value of the crypto industry. It’s completely misleading and deceptive and in no way indicates any realistic level of capital value.

For additional details see Why Market Cap is a Meaningless & Dangerous Valuation Metric in Crypto Markets

Tired Crypto Talking Point #13

“Fiat isn’t backed with anything” / Money has no intrinsic value either

This is called a Tu Quoque Fallacy, aka “Whataboutism”, “Two Wrongs Make A Right” or “Appeal to Hypocrisy” – it’s a distraction from the core argument. Just because you can find something you think is similar/wrong that doesn’t mean your alternative system is an acceptable substitute.
Fiat may not have any intrinsic value, but it’s backed by the full force and faith of the government (or in the case of the EU, multiple countries). It’s also mandated by law to be accepted for all payments and debts, public and private. And the entity that guarantees the integrity of money is the same centralized entity that gives you stuff like:

running water, roads, fire protection, schools, libraries, bridges, flood protection, electricity, internet, cellular, GPS, and pretty important things like civil rights and private property ownership. If you are worried that the government is going to collapse and make fiat worthless, note that at the same time you will also lose protection for your civil rights, property ownership and critical utilities like electricity and Internet upon which crypto depends – none of which would exist without substantive government support.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #14

“Governments are experimenting with blockchain-based CBDCs” / “CBDC’s are happening!!”

CBDC’s (aka “Central Bank Digital Currencies”) is the latest absurd lie crypto bros keep repeating — it’s the idea that the government is “stealing the idea of crypto and using it for their own internal money system”. That’s patently false.
In reality, all banks, central or otherwise, have been using “digital currency” for decades. Since the dawn of computing, banks and finance companies have kept track of money digitally, in databases. These systems are exponentially more efficient than blockchain and bitcoin’s way of tracking money.
Any reference to a “CBDC” is something that has absolutely nothing to do with crypto and blockchain technology — crypto bros are conflating CBDCs with blockchain to try and confuse people and suggest the tech is worth getting into because the government is also considering using it. That’s a LIE.
Just because someone says they’re “looking into” something, doesn’t mean it will ever manifest into an actual workable system. Every time we’ve seen major institutions claim they were “developing blockchain systems”, they’ve almost always failed. From IBM to Microsoft to Maersk to Foreign Countries – the vast majority of these projects are eventually abandoned because they aren’t economically or technologically viable.
Any CBDC that is in use by any major country will have virtually nothing to do with crypto and blockchain – and anybody implying otherwise is lying. There’s no shortage of phony articles out there suggesting otherwise, but when you dig into specifics, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #15

“Blockchain technology has potential”
“Let’s call it ‘DLT’ Distributed Ledger Technology this month and pretend it’s different.”
“Let’s glom on A.I. or whatever is actually useful and pretend by association DLT has ‘use-cases'”
“Let’s name-drop a bunch of crypto companies hyping Ponzi schemes and pretend that means crypto does something useful.”

Do you ever notice that the vast majority of crypto projects always have to invent their own token? If the tech is so good, why can’t it be sold by itself? Why is it always accompanied by a proprietary security that provides a means for the developers to get rich quickly and then disappear?
We are 14 (FOURTEEN) YEARS into this so-called “technology” and to date, there’s not been a single thing blockchain tech does better than existing non-blockchain tech
Truly disruptive technology is obvious from the beginning – sometimes there’s hurdles to adoption (usually costs and certain prerequisites, but none of that applies to blockchain – anybody who has internet access can utilize the tech). It didn’t take 14 years for people to realize the Internet was useful – what held it up were access to computers and networks. There’s nothing stopping blockchain IF it offered any really useful service – it doesn’t.
Just because someone says they’re “looking into” something, doesn’t mean it will ever manifest into an actual workable system. Every time we’ve seen major institutions claim they were “developing blockchain systems”, they’ve almost always failed. From IBM to Microsoft to Maersk to Foreign Countries – the vast majority of these projects are eventually abandoned because they aren’t economically or technologically viable.
A mere “use case” is insufficient to suggest any of this technology has real-world potential. You can use a pair of scissors to mow your lawn, ergo there’s a “use case” for scissors in the lawn care industry. But it’s beyond stupid and inefficient. And blockchain/DLT is equally inefficient and useless in virtually every application its shoved into.
The default position is to be skeptical blockchain has any potential until it is demonstrated. And most common responses to this question are the other “tired crypto talking points.”

Tired Crypto Talking Point #16

“Bitcoin is not “crypto” / “Bitcoin is different / a “commodity”“

This is what’s known as an “Unstated Major Premise” fallacy. A Naked Assertion. Often employed as a begging-the-question fallacy. Just because you say “Bitcoin is different” doesn’t mean it is.
There’s absolutely no functional/material difference between BTC and thousands of other crypto-currencies, including versions using the exact same codebase.
The only distinction BTC (currently) holds is that according to various shady, unregulated exchanges, it seems to be trading at the highest price point. But even those figures are dubious due to the lack of transparency and oversight in the industry. Just because one crypto is more popular, doesn’t mean it’s fundamentally different than others. BTC shares 99.9% of its DNA with many cryptos including BCH, BSV and thousands of others.
Crypto evangelists try to move the goalposts between bitcoin (the technology) and bitcoin (the “investment”). When you note that bitcoin and most cryptos depending upon the context can pass the Howey test and be classified as securities, they will reference bitcoin as a “technology” and not an investment. And it’s true, the tech itself isn’t packaged as an investment, but various others do package crypto as an investment, and it’s a pretty well established underlying concept throughout all of crypto (buy, hold, you will make money) – and those tenets are principals in the Howey test indicating there’s an “investment contract” being promoted. For example, right now the SEC may not consider BTC itself a security, but the process of staking BTC (and other cryptos) and offering a return, that is absolutely considered a security.
The only “gray area” when it comes to whether bitcoin is a security rests on tier 4 of the Howey Test which suggests “a security has to be dependent on the work of others for returns to be generated.” People argue over whether bitcoin fits this description. BUT, the same dynamic applies to all other cryptos as well, so there’s nothing special about bitcoin in that respect. It can also be argued that “the work of others” can be the constant recruitment of “greater fools” to buy in later, which is the dynamic of a classic ponzi scheme.
Just because some people at the SEC, early on, said “bitcoin is a commodity” doesn’t mean it will always stay classified as that way. As we’ve already stated, because of the decentralized nature of these schemes, there is no one instance of “bitcoin” – depending upon how you use the crypto, you can be serving it as a security/investment, or not. And we are seeing more and more, the SEC, the CFTC, the NYAG and other legal entities cracking down on the use of illegal/unlicensed securities. So anybody making blanket statements about Bitcoin being immune from securities laws is lying. And by the way, one of the prongs of the Howey Test (as well as the identification of Ponzi Schemes) is making promises about returns, and/or misleading people as to the true nature of the risks involved. This is common practice with bitcoin.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #17

“It’s still early!“

At this point, crypto and blockchain is 14+ years old. It’s NOT “still early.”
Virtually everything crypto people compare crypto tech to, from the Internet to the printing press, was actually disruptive technology that didn’t require more than a decade to prove its value and utility.
We are 14 years into crypto and still nobody can cite a single thing crypto/blockchain technology does better than existing technology. With all other disruptive technology, that question could be answered immediately..
When you think about it, the promotion of, “It’s still early” exposes the crypto fraud. You don’t want to arrive late to the bitcoin party because only the “early adopters” are the ones who are going to profit. Did anybody ever say at Apple, “It’s still early!?” No, because Apple provided useful products and services from day one, and there wasn’t a ponzi scheme you needed get in early on in order to find value and utility.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #18

“I’m in it for the technology!one“

WHAT “technology?” Blockchain uses tech that was patented in 1979, called Merkle Trees. It’s been known for a quarter of a century, and has very limited uses, because by design, the system isn’t very flexible or efficient. Modern relational databases can do everything Merkle Trees can do even better than crypto’s version.
Crypto didn’t invent cryptographic technology – that tech has been around for thousands of years and its in use all over the place – having absolutely nothing to do with cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Blockchain – the particular flavor of cryptography/Merkle Trees compounded with a digital token system was invented in 2008. That tech is now 14+ years old. And still there’s not a single example of ANY application that blockchain does better than existing non-blockchain technology.
Virtually every implementation of blockchain is riddled with serious problems and whatever system it aims to provide utility to, from being a digital currency, to improving authentication, supply chain, ticketing or “digital ownership” rights ends up being 10x worse than existing systems we’re already using.
Despite the fact that blockchain technology is not simply inferior, but dramatically inefficient (See this detailed analysis), because it’s popular and there’s money being thrown at it by non-technologists, some companies and institutions have tried to use it. In almost every single case, these projects have never materialized: IBM/Maersk shut their blockchain system down, Microsoft shut their blockchain projects down, even municipal blockchain projects like Australia’s stock exchange, admitted it was a failure. In short, this “technology” has been around 14 years and still it can’t find a single situation where it does anything even comparable to what we’re already using, much less better. And don’t say “It’s still early” (That’s Tired Crypto Talking Point #14)

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Tired Crypto Talking Point #19

“Bitcoin’s hashrate is up!” / “Bitcoin is becoming more secure/useful/growing/gaining adoption because of “hashrate”“

Bitcoin’s increased hash rate means two things:
- There’s more competition between miners.
- And more electricity is being wasted maintaining the network and creating nothing of value.
- This doesn’t mean there’s greater adoption. This doesn’t mean the network is “more secure.” This doesn’t mean “bitcoin is growing.” It doesn’t mean there’s more utility or usefulness in the network.
People mine bitcoin for one thing: to make more bitcoin. Mining activity is a natural reaction to the “price” of BTC (or the availability of cheap/free electricity) and not its utility.
Using an increase in hashrate to claim bitcoin is more secure or has more adoption is misleading and deceptive. The increase in hash rate has no actual bearing on how “secure” the network is. The cryptography works the same whether there’s 10 nodes or 10,000. And with mining cartels being concentrated, it makes no difference whether 51% attacks are perpetrated by 6 nodes or 5,001 in one of the top 2-3 cartels.
Factors that affect bitcoin’s “price” are more the result of market manipulation and stablecoin inflation than adoption or utility. To date, there’s still not a single thing anybody can claim blockchain is uniquely good for.
So when you see people harping about the “hashrate”, note that it’s probably one of the few metrics that has been steadily increasing, but this is not a reflection of the utility or growth of bitcoin, but instead, that people have found new markets where they can get cheap electricity or profit by wasting electricity and selling it back to the same grid at a profit. There are some companies that have set up crypto mining operations as a scheme to defraud local governments, citizens and public utilities.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #20

“Crypto has been around X years and is here to stay!” / “Bitcoin has ‘failed’ so many times LOLOL Aren’t you tired of saying it’s going to fail over and over?“

It’s true, many people claim, crypto/Bitcoin is a failure, yet it still appears to be somewhat popular and used in certain circles (but hardly ubiquitous, or part of mainstream society even after all this time). Many people also claim “smoking is bad” but some people are still smoking. Does this mean the non-smokers are wrong?
The truth is, it has failed. Multiple times. If you notice, every few months, there’s an entirely new narrative surrounding bitcoin and crypto (for example):
- Originally, bitcoin was supposed to be “currency” and everybody was going to use it. Mainstream companies were going to use bitcoin for payments and services. There was a small time period where there actually was increased adoption of crypto as a means of payment, but then that failed because the price was too volatile and, and the network couldn’t handle retail transaction volume. It failed then, and still today, using crypto as a common form of payment does not work now (even with L2 solutions). Conclusion: FAILURE
- Crypto was marketed as a way to help “bank the un-banked” but that also failed, owing to the fact that there’s many alternative ways to accomplish this that are more efficient, with more consumer protections and less technical requirements. Conclusion: FAILURE
- NFTs were supposed to be another “big thing” helping artists make money and creating a new market and utility for crypto. Again, that turned out to not be true. Conclusion: FAILURE
- Crypto was supposed to be a “hedge against inflation”. In reality, the price of crypto ebbed and flowed along with the price of other unimportant things, totally affected by inflation. Conclusion: FAILURE
- Crypto was originally promised as “disruptive technology”, “money of the future”, “democratizing finance”, and to fight against manipulation of the monetary system by powerful special interests. In reality, none of those claims have proven to be true, and in many cases crypto has only exacerbated the problems it claimed it could fix. Conclusion: FAILURE
- Bitcoin’s “deflationary nature” was supposed to guarantee an ever increasing value. That hasn’t worked out either. Conclusion: FAILURE
In fact, you can look at every one of these talking points as examples of claims made by crypto proponents that have failed. You can also look at the list of failed blockchain claims as more examples of the many failures of crypto to live up to its promises.
Instead of acknowledging the many failures of crypto, its proponents continue to change the subject, create distractions and, as if they’re in version of “Weekend At Bernies” taking the dead crypto technology, throwing a different outfit on it, and declaring it’s not dead. Over and over.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #21

“Crypto has no ‘Counterparty Risk’“

“Counterparty Risk” is defined as the potential for one party in a transaction to default/fail to follow through on the transaction, and is measured in the amount of financial loss/damage that could be caused as a result.
Satoshi claimed in his Bitcoin White Paper that one of the motivations behind creating crypto/blockchain was to eliminate counterparty risk by removing “middlemen” from the transaction, specifically financial institutions, which crypto people argue can fail and cause counterparty risk.
Unfortunately, bitcoin/crypto/blockchain does not eliminate counterparty risk. Even in situations where it’s strictly a peer-to-peer digital crypto transaction, there are numerous ways in which that transaction can fail and cause counterparty risk. Here are some examples:

Lack of access to hardware necessary to process crypto (smartphones, computers, etc.)
Lack of access to electricity (note that electricity is not needed to engage in a P2P fiat transaction)
Lack of access to specific wallet/transactional software
Lack of access to the Internet (or limited internet access due to firewalls and municipal restrictions)
Faulty smart contracts
Vulnerabilities or back doors in any of the software being used
Not having access to the necessary private keys to execute a transaction
Having the system/software/bridge you’re using hacked
Lack of adequate funding for transaction fees
blockchain processing consortium blacklists
developments in quantum computing that undermine crypto’s encryption schemes

People argue “holding bitcoin” has no counterparty risk. This is also a lie. Just because your wallet is secure, doesn’t mean your bitcoin is secure. Here’s why:

In order to even exist crypto is dependent upon an elaborate network of computers running 24/7 – these systems are not paid by crypto holders – their participation is totally voluntary.
The moment a node/mining operator doesn’t find it economically viable to operate, they can cease operations, and if enough of these people do so, the operation of the blockchain ceases, and nobody will be able to access their wallets and engage in transactions
In the case of bitcoin, its proof-of-work mechanism requires a lot of energy and resources to operate. If the price of BTC drops below a certain level, it no longer becomes economically viable to operate the network and all bitcoin disappears.
Yes, bitcoin’s mining difficulty will adjust to address people leaving the industry and become more modest over time, but since the primary motivation for even participating in the network is the attempt to make exponential profit, the moment BTC stops consistently moving up, is the beginning of its demise. There’s no other reason to operate the network if there isn’t growth. And BTC’s growth model is 100% mathematically un-sustainable.
In short: There is no guarantee blockchain will operate forever. There’s already 30,000+ dead cryptocurrencies that are no longer in existence.

In reality, Bitcoin and crypto doesn’t eliminate counterparty risk or middlemen. It simply changes one set of middlemen (traditional, accountable, well-regulated financial institutions) for another set of middlemen (random, anonymous crypto operators and the software and intermediate systems they use, as well as various other local and international communication services). Anywhere in this chain of necessary resources things can fail, either by intention, negligence, legal mandate, acts of god, or randomly, and it can cause a crypto transaction to not go through.

Some people claim that crypto has less counterparty risk than traditional fiat. This is a lie. And they cherry-pick specific “perfect” scenarios where there’s minimal counterparty risk in crypto provided all of the above conditions aren’t a problem. If we’re going to fabricate a “nirvana fallacy” you can also have the same conditions apply to any alternate system and it too, will have “no counterparty risk” so this is a deceptive, disingenuous claim.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #22

“L2 Solutions Will Fix Everything” / “Lightning Network blah blah blah“

Layer 2 (L2) solutions are just a distraction and in very few cases do they actually address the problems inherent in crypto transactions. This is just a way to “kick the can” down the road, arguing by reference, changing the subject and pretending serious problems with the tech will at some point be fixed. If you ask somebody specifically how L2 fixes things, they just respond with more talking points and very few specifics.
Nowhere is this more obvious than claiming LN (Lightning Network) fixes Bitcoin’s scalability problem. NO IT DOES NOT <– see this link for a detailed analysis on why LN is based on a bunch of lies.
If L1 worked properly, you wouldn’t need L2. Most L2 solutions are there to make L1 solutions appear to be remotely functional, but they typically fail at this. (This isn’t like layered systems on the Internet proper – A level 2 system is not compensating for faults in level 1 – it’s expanding functionality on top of an already functional base layer – unlike blockchain)
Lightning Network for example: In order to make LN work efficiently you have to spend many hours and lots of money to set up all the nodes in place with the perfect amount of channel liquidity, and you have to pretend all these nodes will always stay online (despite there being no actual business model that covers their operational expenses).
So any claims that LN allows lots of bitcoin transactions to happen fast, is misleading at best, but more likely a deceptive lie. Almost 100% of LN transactions over $200 fail – that’s how incapable the network actually is. And by its design, it’s very easy to set up predatory nodes that can charge outrageous transaction fees – remember in the world of crypto, there are no standards or consumer protections. Middlemen (of which there are TONs in LN) can charge whatever fees they want to facilitate your transaction.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #23

“I made a lot of money on crypto [therefore it’s a good scheme for everybody else]” / “Crypto changed my life“

It’s more likely you’re actually lying about your crypto gains, or they’re trivial.
If you do hold crypto that you bought for less than current market “price”, it’s more likely you think you’re “rich” but haven’t actually cashed out, which remains to be seen if you actually ever will be able to.
There are multiple fallacies involved in this claim: The Gambler’s Fallacy that suggests because something special happened once, it can likely happen again in a predictable way, and Confirmation Bias – the notion that many people fixate on positives while ignoring the more common negatives.
Even assuming you have made money in the past, it’s a well known fact that in these cases: Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, and since you’re still holding crypto, it’s in your interests to promote such fallacies in order to drive up the price of your holdings. Since crypto is a negative-sum-game, it’s impossible for even a significant amount of people who play the market, to come out ahead without the vast majority losing. Therefore it’s mathematically impossible that this scheme will reliably produce positive returns.
You may not care that your profits come as a result of fraud and others losses, and promoting everything from money laundering to human trafficking, but other (moral, ethical, empathetic) people do.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #24

“The elite/politicians/Soros & Buffet/rich/oligarchs who control banks/money/everything are screwing everybody and crypto will fix that”

This is called a Tu Quoque Fallacy, aka “Whataboutism”, “Two Wrongs Make A Right” or “Appeal to Hypocrisy” – it’s a distraction from the core argument. Just because you can find something you think is similar/wrong that doesn’t mean your alternative system is an acceptable substitute.
The idea that crypto will be a hedge against powerful special interests is laughably hypocritical. In fact, the wealth and power disparity in the crypto market makes all existing monetary systems seem 100% egalitarian in comparison.
It’s estimated that 90% of the BTC is in the hands of 2.5% of the wallets. 58% of Bitcoin is in control by 0.1% of holders. If Bitcoin were to become a dominant financial security, it could create an even smaller group of super-powerful oligarchs with significantly less oversight than existing systems.
Other cryptos like Ethereum are just as bad, if not worse. Almost all crypto schemes are conceived primarily as a benefit to its developers and early benefactors, and as such, they almost always have a wildly disproportionate share and influence over the system. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about DAOs or SAFEMOON. All the claims about being “money for the people by the people” is a huge lie.
All around the world, people are well aware of powerful special interests taking advantage of others. This certainly is a problem that needs to be addressed, but crypto in no way offers a solution, and in fact would exacerbate those very problems on an unprecedented scale.

Tired Crypto Talking Point #25

“Why do you hate crypto?” / “You’re just jealous because you lost out on making $$$” / “If you bought crypto back when you started complaining, you’d be rich now.”

Very few (if any) people who are critical of crypto could be characterized as “haters.” Hate is an irrational, emotional condition. Our opposition to crypto is based on logic, reason and evidence. The tech doesn’t do anything useful, and the investment model is a ponzi scheme.
If we have an aversion to crypto, it’s because it involves and promotes: fraud, deception, human trafficking, illegal/dangerous drug dealing, sanctions and human rights violations, money laundering, violent cartels, terrorism, wasting huge amounts of energy accomplishing nothing, dictatorships, global climate change, scams and more. Many [decent, ethical, moral, empathetic] people consider those “bad things” worth “hating.” Many of us know family and friends who were defrauded in various crypto schemes. We’d like to avoid that happening to others.
We also are not “jealous” of anybody else’s so-called “gains” in crypto (and in fact we’re highly skeptical that even a fraction of the people making those claims are telling the truth, but if they are it’s moot). And we aren’t upset that we didn’t get a chance to exploit greater fools in the ponzi scheme earlier. There are plenty of ways to make money and create wealth and be successful without defrauding others in a giant decentralized Ponzi scheme. In fact, many of us are already quite financially secure which is why we have the time to debate these issues: we know better. We know there are more reliable and honorable ways to create value than making risky bets in an unregulated casino that is run by anonymous scammers and sociopaths.
It’s very revealing that pro-crypto people seem to think the only reason anybody would be opposed to their schemes is either because they’re hateful or jealous. That’s classic psychological projection. Crypto-bros’ notion that doing something for the betterment of humanity without any personal material gain, makes no sense, says a lot about what kind of people they are: sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths, etc. It takes a very low empathy person to not recognize there are some beneficial reasons to oppose crypto.