I’ve been using and following cryptocurrencies since 2014, cryptocurrencies today are no longer trying to make decentralized currencies. Today, most cryptos are hyper-speculative “get-rich-quick” schemes with virtually no practical and legal use cases. The environmental impacts of cryptos have been discussed ad nauseum, so I won’t beat this dead horse. What I find most insidious is that the crypto ecosystem at its core is no longer an effort to create a decentralized currency, but to commodify literally everything in the world. e.g. Grid Coin, Sweat Coin, Ethereum NFTs such as Propy.

I started with libertarian views, but I have been overwhelmingly convinced that this universal commodification and market making is incompatible with ethical and equitable resource distribution. Most cryptos I am aware of are fundamentally regressive designs that favor early adopters and wealthy investors by disadvantaging the average user.

Below are my notes on various consensus algorithms: Proof of Work = Fundamentally unscalable, incredibly wasteful. Proof of Stake = Fundamentally regressive. Byzantine Fault Tolerance = Federated / Centralized, this defeats the purpose of crypto. Proof of Capacity = Fundamentally regressive. Proof of Burn = Fundamentally wasteful and deflationary. Proof of Activity = Hybrid POW & POS, incredibly wasteful and fundamentally regressive.

Proof of Elapsed Time = Probably the most promising, but currently very rare.