Stats for nerds
2recommend
5mentions
5people
2020–2021years
40% recommend60% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- They're just rebranding to annoy author David Gerard, who recently published a great book "Libra Shrugged" looking into Libra and Facebook's bad ideas: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/
- For further reading on what exactly they were trying to do in the first place: Libra Shrugged by David Gerard
- Some of us have maintained a strong anti-Bitcoin position at all times.
[edit] David Gerard comes to mind - author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged - and HN user (dgerard I think) (https://davidgerard.co.uk/)
More recently Amy Castor, also an HN user (amycastor) (https://amycastor.com/)
And of course Bitfinex’d is back and public again on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed)
- The Open Blockchains Book of the Year 2020 Award Goes To...
Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money by David Gerard, November 2020, 182 Pages - Congrats!
What's your book of the year?
- > Is there a reason this is tied to the blockchain?
The only legitimate reason I can think of would be cynically drafting on the hype cycle. But I've been reading David Gerard's book Libra Shrugged [1] and it looks like the actual answer is that "blockchain" has a quasi-religious belief system built up around it, and the people involved are members of the faith.
One of the stunning things for me about "blockchain" revolutionary hype is how long it has gone on without significant accomplishment. It started only a bit after the iPhone, which has had a huge impact on things, including payments. It's hard now to imagine a world without the internet in one's pocket. But if every blockchain stopped working tomorrow, few would notice. Contrast this with M-Pesa [2], a different approach to digital money. It started at around the same time but has had huge uptake. A recent report in Kenya [3] says M-Pesa has 30 million accounts, which is approximately the number of people in Kenya age 15 or over. To me, that's what successful digital money looks like.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08M8DGKY4/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa [3] https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Sector-Statistic...
