For a long time I have tried to explain the impact of Bitcoin upon the world by comparing it to the Internet. Then I usually say I think its impact will be greater. This morning I was thinking about the tradeoffs with the Internet. On the whole I think it is good for humanity but there are some tradeoffs that are negative. I would guess almost everyone can agree with that statement. We might disagree on specifics but not the generalization.
So with this in mind I started to think, what are the negative impacts of Bitcoin? I have observed in the tech space at least there are to few that think about tradeoffs. The fact that so many bitcoiners do think about this and the multitude of things that could go wrong is a major factor that drew me further into bitcoin.
A couple of quotes I really like about the subject fit well here.
"Programmers know the benefits of everything and the tradeoffs of nothing." ~ Rich Hickey
"There are no solutions, only trade-offs" ~ Thomas Sowell
So, what are some of the negative tradeoffs for Bitcoin?
- Shitcoins (Scam copy-cats)
- Privacy implications of digital money
What else?