A reporter's descent into CGM madness | The Vergecast
TL;DR
Actor Ben McKenzie discusses his documentary 'Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,' explaining why cryptocurrency fails as a functional currency due to its technological limitations, the impossibility of 'trustless' money, and its actual operation as a corporate-controlled speculative asset rather than a decentralized alternative to traditional finance.
🔒 The Trust Problem 3 insights
Money requires trust, not code
Crypto's premise of creating 'trustless' currency contradicts the fundamental nature of money as a social construct built on human trust relationships.
Code is written by humans
The 'code is law' philosophy fails because humans write computer code, as demonstrated when Sam Bankman-Fried altered one line of FTX's source code to steal customer funds.
Corporate control, not decentralization
If money doesn't come from government, it comes from corporations, with the majority of modern Bitcoin mining controlled by multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies.
⚙️ Technological & Real-World Failures 3 insights
Inadequate transaction capacity
Bitcoin processes only 5-7 transactions per second compared to Visa's 24,000, rendering it technologically incapable of functioning as practical everyday currency.
El Salvador's failed experiment
Despite Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador and remittances comprising 25% of the economy, less than 1% of remittances actually use Bitcoin due to volatility and usability barriers.
Remittance narrative debunked
The argument that crypto helps poor people send money home cheaply collapsed in practice because users cannot afford to gamble with volatile currencies when converting back to cash.
👥 Culture and Demographics 3 insights
Male-dominated gambling culture
Crypto participation skews heavily male, with 42% of men aged 18-29 having traded cryptocurrency, reflecting higher risk tolerance and gambling tendencies among young men.
Inverted terminology as grift
Crypto operates as a get-rich-quick scheme using deliberately misleading language where 'decentralized' systems are centralized, 'stable' coins are unstable, and 'currencies' are not used as money.
Victims remain believers
Even those who lost significant money to scams like Celsius maintain cult-like devotion to the technology, creating a bizarre community that persists despite financial devastation.
Bottom Line
Cryptocurrency cannot function as viable money because it attempts to replace essential human trust with fallible corporate-controlled code while failing technologically and operating primarily as a speculative gambling mechanism.
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