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United States Technology

Tech Experts Urge Washington To Resist Crypto Industry's Influence (ft.com) 50

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
A group of renowned technologists has joined forces to urge US lawmakers to crack down on the burgeoning cryptocurrencies industry, marking the first concerted effort to counter well-financed lobbying by blockchain companies. From a report: Harvard lecturer Bruce Schneier, former Microsoft engineer Miguel de Icaza and principal engineer at Google Cloud Kelsey Hightower, are among 26 leading computer scientists and academics who have signed a letter delivered to US lawmakers heavily criticising crypto investments and blockchain technology. While individuals have made similar warnings about the safety and reliability of digital assets, it marks a more organised effort to challenge the growing influence of crypto advocates who want to resist attempts to regulate the frothy sector. "The claims that the blockchain advocates make are not true," said Schneier. "It's not secure, it's not decentralised. Any system where you forget your password and you lose your life savings is not a safe system," he added. "We're counter-lobbying, that's what this letter is about," said signatory and software developer Stephen Diehl. "The crypto industry has its people, they say what they want to the politicians."

A recent analysis of the US Congressional Lobbying Disclosure database by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, revealed the number of lobbyists representing the crypto industry increased from 115 to 320 between 2018 and 2021, and the money spent on lobbying for the crypto sector quadrupled from $2.2mn to $9mn in the same period. US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase led the effort with 26 lobbyists and $1.5mn spent on lobbying in 2021. Companies with growing interest in the crypto sector, include Meta, Visa and PayPal, have also lobbied for the industry. Meanwhile, leading crypto exchanges such as FTX, Binance and Crypto.com have also spent heavily on endorsement deals with sports stars and entertainment venues to promote their products to the public.
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Tech Experts Urge Washington To Resist Crypto Industry's Influence More

Tech Experts Urge Washington To Resist Crypto Industry's Influence

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  • "Washington, you must not give--Holy shit is that a startup that's going to combine AI-generated blockchain NFT LoonadogeCoin merited out as universal basic income based on web analytics of positive social behaviors? Here's my angel investment of $100M! No, take $200M!"

    Considering the state of Silicon Valley and the fact that the above sentence isn't really a joke, tech experts might not be the ones to listen to on this.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      Considering the state of Silicon Valley and the fact that the above sentence isn't really a joke, tech experts might not be the ones to listen to on this.

      Tech experts are not a single group of people with the same views on every topic. There are tech experts who are cryptocurrency advocates, and those who are skeptics.

      Tech experts are absolutely the correct people to listen to, just don't pick a few tech experts and believe they speak for an entire industry. It shouldn't take much effort to know that many tech experts feel cryptocurrency has promise, and many others believe it is snake oil. Then make your own decisions about how risk tolerant you are before

      • Then the article is ignoring one set of tech experts and making a judgment call without disclosing it. Because like it or not, the majority of tech experts are losing their shit over NFTs and crypto and bla bla bla off in SV land. You can't walk down the street there without a homeless person giving you an elevator pitch on their latest crypto startup idea--and crypto money is thrown at them like candy.

        • Well good for those homeless people, properly exploiting the market to make better lives for themselves.

        • I've known a lot of tech experts in my time. Not a one of them ever called themselves that, or been sought after for interviews: they were too busy doing research, or making projects. These are people who spoke at many of the academic/industry conferences. They thought deeply about their ideas, and everything they did had a strong basis in math and computer science.

          The "tech bros" who put themselves out there as "experts" aren't. They're guys that have neither the interest nor the ability to make serious te

          • This. From the list of people mentioned in the article, I know several names which made important contributions architecting and developing widely used software or making novel computer science research. And I'm a physicist for which computers are just a hobby, without formal training nor vast time dedicated to the computer science world. I have yet to found someone with a good technical CV that explains plainly how a glorified hash tree is a trillion dollar idea tho.

            • I have yet to found someone

              I know that the modern world is specialized, but one would think a physicist could write better than that.

              Oh, and if it's not obvious, the word you were looking for (and failing to find) was"find"...

              • I would've guessed a sore crypto bro would've tried to provide a good argument. But he focused on an autocorrect mistake while swipe typing. Good for you. Saving the world one prime factorization and one typo flagging at a time.

    • So you're saying, do not trust the guys in tech industry who are opposed to cryptocurrency idiocy? Or are you naively thinking that literally everyone in tech is all-in on crypto, and those who argue argue against are secretly buying it anyway?

      • I'm saying for every tech expert saying not to, there are five that are doing the opposite right now.

        • You've probably got your proportions backwards. We've been quiet for years, but are finally speaking up.

        • For every tech expert supporting cryptocurrency, most of them have a financial stake in it being successful. For every one against it there is none, except for possibly for sour grapes, but then why not just buy cryptocurrency. Some, probably most will not say a thing. The proportions are just speculation unless you have an unbiased survey of tech experts.

          • There's nothing wrong with having a financial interest in something being successful, and that doesn't make someone a non-expert. And just because someone doesn't have such an interest doesn't mean they're unbiased; you could say they're biased towards it NOT succeeding, because they don't care about what happens to the investments of people that aren't themselves.

            If one wants to examine an issue you have to take opinions from proponents and opponents.

    • Right. We should get our tech advice from golf experts, instead.

    • Could you at least read the fucking summary? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @01:11PM (#62584002)
      These aren't the money people. These are actual computer scientists calling for these Ponzi schemes to be reigned in. As in actual tech experts and not guys like Phony Stark who spend their daddy's money.

      As for why these experts are lobbying against crypto, it's a paywalled articles so who knows and I can't be bothered just yet to try and find an alternative source. I can tell you that Stephen Diehl has called out nfts is a scam and gotten enough press that the crypto Bros have written a few articles attacking him. So it's no surprise he's lobbying Congress.

      For my money I am absolutely terrified that pretend assets are being treated as real assets. If you think the 2008 market crash sucked imagine how much worth it would be if instead of houses it was bits and bites pictures of distressed primates.
      • But bro, crypto is the shiznitz. All those lame tech nerds don't know anything about complicated matters like cryptocurrency. Trust me, my plumber's wife's cousin told them all about it based on what his neighbor remembered from a YouTube video. :)

  • Beware of FOMO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boxless ( 35756 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @12:49PM (#62583914)

    The crypto industry has spread so much crap across the landscape the mere mortals have no idea what any of it means. And they have also gotten people to buy in to the idea that this is obviously the future, and if you don't see that you are a caveman.

    My challenge to policy makers: if you can't understand it, there's probably a good reason, and it's not because you are stupid. It's because the whole thing is a pile of cr*p. Trust in yourself, and call BS when you see it. And the minute you get some crypto-bro up in front of congress, and you ask plain-English questions, and the crypto-bro can't give plain-English answers, that is a sure sign it's worthless. Don't let them get away with it.

    BUT, there is a segment of policy makers that think the US (or whatever country you are in) will be a financial backwater if we don't get on-board. As if we went back 30 years and decided commercializing the internet wasn't a good idea. It's not the same. The utility in widespread adoption of the internet was as plain as day (warts and all). Crypto? Not so much. The best that can be said of it is that it's a solution looking for a problem. The worst that can be said about it? Where do i begin?

    Trust your gut, have courage, and just say no.

    • I have to ask a dumb question: When one buys into a currency, what is one looking at, other than hoping that for some random reason, the currency gains steam, or some bigwig is able to manipulate the currency in their favor, so you can sell before other forces cause it to fall? Why even bother with cryptocurrencies?

      If I buy a lot of stocks and "hodl" them, I get dividends, even if their value goes down, so if I do nothing, I get cash. If I have real estate, I can use it for farming, lease it out, put a s

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Thom34 ( 6232932 )

        I have to ask a dumb question: When one buys into a currency, what is one looking at, other than hoping that for some random reason, the currency gains steam, or some bigwig is able to manipulate the currency in their favor, so you can sell before other forces cause it to fall?

        Well... European people might want to buy USD now as FED is able to rise interests, where EKP seems to be unable to do it. It is expected that inflation will rise there, and lead to devaluation of euro.

        Why even bother with cryptocurrencies?

        If you don't want to wait so long. There is more volatility. That is what makes living for all the stock brokers too.

        If I buy a lot of stocks and "hodl" them, I get dividends, even if their value goes down, so if I do nothing, I get cash.

        All companies don't pay dividends (they might need all the money for the growth e.g. Tesla, or they are going bad e.g. uber)

        You can also get interest rate for the crypto's if you like.

        If I have real estate, I can use it for farming, lease it out, put a shop on the property, or rent it out, where I make money. What does cryptocurrency give me? Not stability. I gain zero by keeping it around, and it has no intrinsic value and represents nothing... it is just a number, that isn't even tied to a currency backed by a country.

        Yep, cryp

  • "DeFi" = "Deregulated Finance" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Remember kids, "DeFi" really means "Deregulated Finance".

    • DeFi isn't even real finance, at best it's an automated exchange at worst it's sandcastles disguising outright ponzis like Terra.

      Some on chain algorithm can't offer a real loan, it has no recourse. Crypto collateral for crypto "loans" are just the above mentioned sandcastles.

  • The grand master plan of crypto (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.

    After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.

    But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currency, and

  • The current DeFi/Cryptocurrencies/NFT markets reminds me of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco of 2008. As people pour money into X, the securities industry sooner or later starts offering derivatives, like CDO's (collateralized debt obligations), and margin trading, both creating systemic risk to the securities industry. Basically these derivatives suck money away from low risk investments creating pools of high risk investments. When the high risk investments experience turbulence, it triggers (panic) selling
  • People have been begging the Government to avoid the influence of money for...uh...since the beginning?
  • What do these pesky "experts" know? Why are they getting in the way of our freedom & making money here & now? I'm pretty sure that US lawmakers have more in common with crypto bros' than they do with people who actually know stuff & are concerned for the public interest & long term security & stability.

  • I think it's important to make a distinction between Bitcoin and Blockchain. Bitcoin is the revolutionary money, blockchain is the pile on by con artists that inevitably follows. I won't defend the sh!tcoins but it's too easy to poke holes in the luminaries argument.

    "It's not secure"

    Elliptic Curve/SHA are generally accepted as secure.

    "it's not decentralised"

    Distributed systems concept and design are well defined and multiple competing miners, validating nodes and wallet software that all operate using a p

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