Tag Archives: Bitcoin

A survey of El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption

Posted on December 28, 2023 by

On December 22, a group of researchers from the US had a paper published in Science in which they reported the results of a survey of 1,800 households in El Salvador over its members’ adoption, or not, of bitcoin as currency. In September … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Scicomm | Tagged Bitcoin, Chiva wallet, cryptocurrency, El Salvador, financial instruments, financial literacy, Nayib Bukele | Comments Off

What the bitcoin price drop reveals about ‘crypto’

Posted on June 19, 2022 by

One of the definitive downsides of cryptocurrencies raised its head this week when the nosediving price of bitcoin – brought on by the Luna/Terra crash and subsequent cascading effects – rendered bitcoin mining less profitable. One bitcoin today costs $19,410, so it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis | Tagged Bitcoin, bitcoin price, computing power, cryptocurrency, permissioned blockchain, permissionless blockchain, Ponzi scheme | Comments Off

Crypto: Climate change means new tech has less time today to prove itself

Posted on February 13, 2022 by

I spent this weekend reading about permissioned and permissionless blockchain systems. If you want to get in on it, I can’t recommend this post by David Rosenthal enough. Much of the complexity of executing transactions of the major extant cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Tech | Tagged Big Tech, Bitcoin, blockchain, carbon dioxide concentration, carbon emissions, cryptocurrencies, David Rosenthal, decentralisation, Ethereum, Molly White, non-fungible tokens, proof of work, web2, web3 | Comments Off

On crypto-art, racism and outcome fantasies

Posted on March 23, 2021 by

If you want to find mistakes with something, you’ll be able to find them if you tried long enough. That doesn’t inherently make the thing worthless. The only exception I’ve encountered to this truism is the prevailing world-system – which … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Op-eds, Tech | Tagged art criticism, art patronage, Beeple, Big Tech, Bitcoin, bitcoin mining, blockchain, capitalism, Christie's, consensus algorithms, crypto-art, cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, Everydays, financial transactions, Metakovan, Metapurse, NFT, non-fungible tokens, power consumption, proof of stake, proof of work, racism, settlement finality, Silicon Valley, Sybil attack, The First 5000 Days, Tim Swanson, Twobadour | Comments Off