The biggest problem with crypto no one talks about

Let me introduce myself (there is a reason why I start this story like this, read on).

In fact, let me brag a little. My undergraduate degree in Economics is from Cambridge University. There is a lot of math in economics, so even though I don’t consider myself a “technical” person, my degree wasn’t always “soft”.

I did an MBA at Harvard. One of my courses was on options with Professor Merton, one of the authors behind the famous Black-Scholes options pricing model (in fact, it’s called the Black-Scholes-Merton model). Unlike most other courses at Harvard, this was a highly technical course; every day and in the exam, we had to solve many difficult problems.

This prelude is to say that my IQ is fine and my skills are not “soft”.

Now let me tell you that I don’t understand crypto. Let me be very rude and stress the point. I don’t fucking understand what this shit is about. I do understand the business concept of blockchain, but the notion of digital currency that can be mined — I fucking don’t.

Of course, if I take some course on crypto, I’ll understand it, and can even become an expert. Of course, if I wanted, I could self-teach myself without even taking any course, just by reading a bunch of articles on the internet.

But it’s not trivial. Reading Wikipedia on bitcoin or Ethereum won’t get the job done. So if I am, with my privileged academic background (and business background for that matter), would require a major time investment to really understand the business and technical nuances (decentralized! open-source! smart-contract! network nodes! ledger! mining!) behind crypto, how can this be advocated as something cool and mainstream?!

Here’s Tim Dennig’s latest article: Nine (Recent) Things About Crypto That Are Actually Incredible.

Subtitle: most people have missed them.

Most?!?

Most?!?

Check out one of the points (quoting directly from the article)

Crypto is a digital country

Naval Ravikant says, “Crypto is the smartest people in the world exiting into their own economy.”

This idea hasn’t caught on yet. What if crypto is a different economy not controlled by institutions? What if democracy is reinvented with the voting rights blockchains enable?