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Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

16 Jun

Let's talk about the evergreen meme that while cryptocoins are certainly a useless speculative bubble, "the blockchain" is a revolutionary technology that will improve the financial system. (1/)🧵

You see this clain basically every Bloomberg or New York Times article. The problem with this claim is that it's short on any specific goals, details or mechanism. What exactly will it change? (2/)

It's especially common to hear this meme repeated by residents of the United States where retail banking and payments are perhaps 20 years behind the rest of developed economies. In fact many developing economies are more advanced at this point. (3/)

Read 20 tweets

Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

13 Jun

Let's talk about the geopolitical implications of the ransomware crisis, why additional money launder rules won't solve anything, and how a blanket cryptocurrency ban is the inevitable solution. (1/) 🧵

Since the early dotcom era there was always been a criminal element looking to profit from insecure software for their own gain. Ransomware has existed long before crypto, it just wasn't generally profitable or scalable. (2/)

What is new is that what was a once a small fire has had gasoline poured on it and turned into an uncontrollable blaze ripping across our most critical infrastructure Our hospitals, power grids, local governments and soon I fear much worse. (3/)
stephendiehl.com/blog/ransomwar…

Read 23 tweets

Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

11 Jun

Let's talk about the similarities between QAnon and #Bitcoin. (1/) 🧵

Both movements fall into the category of "conspiracy cults". Their pattern of enticement is similar to religious cults in the illusory pretense of leading acolytes deeper and deeper into the group's secrets while isolating followers from friends and family outside the cult. (2/)

The bizarre cult-like antics of the Bitcoin faithful were on full display in Miami last week in which thousands of faithful descended on Miami to worship Bitcoin in Trump-style rallies which turned into a superspreader event. (3/)
nytimes.com/2021/06/05/tec…

Read 16 tweets

Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

5 Jun

Let's talk about why the software industry is helpless to do anything about ransomware and why there's no technical solution anytime soon. (1/) 🧵

First let's discuss the scope of all software that exists, and it's nearly unfathomable. Your average Android phone runs on 15 million lines of code dating back to ancient 1970s era Unix toolchain code written by our grandparents generation. (2/)

Windows 10 contains over 50 million lines of code and no one person on Earth even fully understands in its entirety. It contains code from tens of thousands of global companies for running hundreds of thousands of devices all manufactured with different goals and standards. (3/)

Read 18 tweets

Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

3 Jun

Let's talk about market manipulation and how the cryptocurrency exchange ecosystem is an unregulated cesspit. (1/) 🧵

A exchange business is one that connects buyers with sellers, it maintains what's called an "order book" which matches the price intention of buyers (called the "bid") with the seller (called the "ask"). (2/)

A market maker combines this price information of what a potential buyer is willing to pay with the quantity they will purchase, for that proposed price and quantity from sellers. A match between buyer and seller is called a "fill". (3/)

Read 22 tweets

Stephen Diehl

@smdiehl

29 May

Lets talk about how pyramid schemes like #bitcoin have historically exploded and the public damage that happens when they do. (1/) 🧵

A pyramid scheme is a type of fraud whereby investments are solicited from the public on the pretense (implicit or explicit) of offering high returns on their investment. Normally returns far beyond that of normal markets. (2/)

The secret sauce that makes it all spin is that returns are paid to the early investors out of the funds received from those who invest later. (3/)

Read 18 tweets

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