if for no other reason than it is so excellent at pushing people's buttons, causing them to spew illogical and inane arguments that either have no special relevance to Bitcoin, are directly analogous to mainstream currency systems, or show their utter ignorance of the topic.
His only potentially valid point is easily fixable in the same way previous problems have been fixed:
*) BtC is inherently deflationary -- also my largest concern, but if it turns out to be a problem it can be fixed by a majority of miners agreeing to the change. We just need to keep an eye on it should a problem arise.
The rest of his points...
*) BtC is untraceable -- Only if it never touches the real world, which makes it almost useless. If it touches the real world anywhere, the transactions are traceable thru the blockchain. Just ask DPR. If you want untraceable, use U.S. dollars.
*) Mining has carbon footprint from hell -- Except it doesn't. You think transactions are free in any current system? Why do they cost so much then? Miners have to recover their cost, and mining is getting dramatically more power efficient every year.
*) Malware -- credit card and bank account numbers are stolen by malware. Why should any resource be any different? Even if every single networked personal computer and server on the planet were subverted to mine Bitcoin, the growth of FPGA and now ASIC mining makes malware mining insignificant.
*) BtC does not violate Gresham's law -- the claim depends entirely on the flawed malware premise. Making this claim is just idiotic. I can see the spittle blowing all over his keyboard and monitor...
*) Lack of regulation permits funding horrible things -- more spittle. This means bitcoin is just like the dollar. Except the dollar is heavily regulated and used for far more, plus used for far longer and regulation hasn't stopped it yet. What possible point could this line of reasoning ever have? How stupid do you have to be to try and make it? If not stupid, are you so despicable and haughty as to be trying to appeal to stupid people who will buy into this argument?
*) designed for tax evasion -- this is simply a repeat of the untraceable argument and no more valid than it was the first time.
*) gini coefficient -- My favorite comment from the linked BtC thread, "When bitcoin was one day old, 1 person owned 100%. I'd say the market seems to be evening things out. --2_Thumbs_Up" How is this a criticism of bitcoin when it applies even more to every other competing asset and currency in the world? And if you link government or gov't currencies solve this issue, notice that the FBI now has one of the largest stashes of BtC by simply taking it, just like gov'ts have always done with every asset. I suspect Stross finds more appeal in the anti-interest ("charging interest is financial violence") comments which rapidly took over the thread, which is odd because those are supposedly even more extremely libertarian.
*) linear extrapolations imply far worse -- ooh, scary! And if you think that is bad, try exponential extrapolations! Or simply look the same way at the existing world for a brief moment.
*) "editorialize briefly" that BtC was designed as a weapon -- the whole thing was an editorial, a rabid, foaming at the mouth editorial of nonsense.
I expected better of Charlie Stross. Oh well. Another apparently intelligent human shoots himself in the head while aiming for his foot, all because his head was up where it should not have been.
