That's not a fault of the technology. Many people want to pin the flaw of human behavior on Bitcoin but there's nothing inherent in the technology that forces people to do that. The literal "quickstart" of Bitcoin is to hold it in your own custody (running the Bitcoin software on your computer gives you a wallet you 100% control).
If your tech exhibits bad results due to "flawed human behavior" that's a usability concern, which is absolutely a fault of the technology. Tech doesn't exist in a bubble without humans.
The tech doesn't exhibit anything. Bitcoin has continued to run, as intended, since 2009. The market for Bitcoin however exhibits exactly what I've suggested above: human behavior.
I know how it works, and I’d argue it is a flaw of the technology.
Money works because I can hand $10 to a 5 or a 95 year old and they know what to do with it. Very few people do anything other than speculate in crypto, and even fewer hold it in their own wallets as opposed to on exchanges. If the friction of getting started in the future of money requires IT support, then it isn’t going to work
This perspective is far from universal. Obviously, HN readers are a super-technical strata of society, and people here have little trouble understanding the concept and usage of cryptocurrency. The vast majority of the general population is nowhere near this level of technical proficiency. Just downloading and installing a software is firmly out of grasp for lots of people, probably more than half of them if I had to guess.
It doesn't need to be universal. The need for personal computers wasn't universal when Steve Jobs was running around Silicon Valley selling the Apple I in the 70s. They didn't even understand email in the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg.
Look at us now.
> The vast majority of the general population is nowhere near this level of technical proficiency.
Right. Just like all technology, that's our responsibility as "the nerds." We take something that's complex and distill it down into something that's easily digested by people with limited or no technical aptitude.
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I find it deeply alarming that the supposed technical elite that wander this site are so averse to something that can liberate and help so many people, worldwide. Even if they have the capacity to understand it, it's clear that many here haven't done their homework and are relying on second or third-hand knowledge (or at best, outdated information) to form their opinions.
Despite their hubris and narcissism, they're no better than "the general population" on understanding this.
