The not-inventor of proof-of-work (which was actually invented by a woman called Cynthia Dwork in 1993), along with a few other boomer OG cypherpunk mailing list members, have sadly become senile conspiracist nutjobs that are toxic parasites to the field. https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/1291298850301513730

Adam Back is a particularly good example of this. When Satoshi emailed him about Bitcoin in 2008, he never thought it would work. He first got involved when Bitcoin reached it's ATH at $1000 in 2013, opening his first GitHub account the next day.

He has however never contributed to the Bitcoin coinbase. Instead, he capitalised on his Hashcash reference in the Bitcoin whitepaper to raise $80m for his new company Blockstream, which has been a shit-stain on Bitcoin technological progress ever since.

Back and his Blockstream friends have bullied anyone who disagreed with them out of Bitcoin, such that once-great discussion forums such #bitcoin -wizards have become dead as researchers who dare to discuss anything more interesting than "Schnorr signatures" have been driven out.

Instead, applied cryptography researchers who find Bitcoin's technological conservatism unappealing, have found a place in the Ethereum research community to apply new technology like zkSNARKS, STARKS and other dist. systems research, which Back calls "perpetual motion scams".

Meanwhile, the most "interesting" thing that Blockstream has done? Put a Bitcoin node in space because it's cool and rockets are fun. Oh, and launch a centralised sidechain for centralised exchanges to settle transfers. So much for the original cypherpunk vision!

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all of this is that Bitcoin - and by extension the cryptocurrency space - will get an even worse rap in the future as proof-of-work consumes more and more energy because Bitcoin's technical leadership considers anything more efficient a "scam".

There is no way out of being called a "scam" to such people, because in order to bootstrap a proof-of-stake protocol, you have to somehow pick an initial configuration of stake. Ergo, it's a premine. Ergo, anyone who tries to fix the energy waste of Bitcoin is a "scammer"!

This is a serious ticking time bomb. Bitcoin's energy consumption is directly correlated to its price. Right now Bitcoin uses 0.21% of the world energy supply. If there's two more bubbles and Bitcoin goes up 100x, it could use 20% of supply. How do you think society will react?

For investors betting on more 10x-100x Bitcoin returns, consider how society reacts when mining starts using >10% of world energy supply, given that Bitcoin energy consumption is directly correlated with its price. This is why I cannot be bullish Bitcoin long-term, even as a SoV.

Since Bitcoin maximalists like to play dumb:
1) It could use 20% of *today's* supply. If Bitcoin goes up 1000x it could use 200% of *today's* supply, not tomorrow's.
2) The source of the 0.21% figure is https://bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48853230.
3) I said "could", assuming worse case scenario.

But sure, nit-picking is a great way to miss the point. I understand the argument that proof-of-work is not a "waste" etc, but society won't care when it starts distorting energy markets, and starts taking away much-needed capital to build large batteries. https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16723186/elon-musk-battery-launched-south-australia