| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 2 days ago |
| Original ABC article, including video of interview: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-24/ben-mckenzie-cryptocu... I turned off when he said that Bitcoin is issued by corporations. The interviewer calls him out on it and he doubles down. That's blatantly false, and indicates poor research and / or poor understanding. It may be true for plenty of other cryptocurrencies, but it's definitely not true for some, including Bitcoin. In fact, 99% of cryptocurrencies are scams, but that's because they can now be created in seconds with little knowledge or skill. Feels like he's pushing an agenda, especially with the use of the term 'corporations'. Which is amusing, since it's the lack of trust of big-finance that (so the story goes) led to the creation of Bitcoin in the first place - the 2007 GFC in particular. Although electronic money was being dabbled with since the mid-late 90s, and that base formed the foundation of what Bitcoin was built on. This is probably just advertising for his documentary, really. |
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| ▲ | throwawayffffas a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| The kind interpretation of his statement is that Bitcoin mining has moved to the hands of corporations. Its not nerds in their garages running gpus, but an entire "corporate" industrial complex designing, and shipping custom chips filling out entire data centers. |
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| ▲ | Nina_antalpha 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| most crypto's junk. But saying Bitcoin is issued by corporations, then doubling down, just hands critics a free win. Sloppy for a guy selling a doc. |
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| ▲ | UltraSane a day ago | parent [-] | | He might have meant corporate mining, which is partially true. |
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| ▲ | georgemcbay 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I turned off when he said that Bitcoin is issued by corporations. The interviewer calls him out on it and he doubles down. That's blatantly false, and indicates poor research and / or poor understanding. He knows how bitcoin works. And what he said wasn't a lie, though you could argue it was a simplification, but he's not addressing the HN crowd with what he's saying and IMO his simplification is perfectly acceptable to the audience he is targeting. The cost to mine a single BTC in 2026 is > $70k. Random individuals and hobbyists are not spending that kind of money mining bitcoin. |
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| ▲ | JuniperMesos 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'd say that's such an important oversimplification that it's tantamount to a lie. Bitcoin's issuance model is one of the several completely novel financial concepts that Bitcoin introduced, and involves mentally-modeling a relatively-complex incentive structure and some non-trivial computer science properties to understand. Saying "Bitcoin is issued by corporations" is simply not engaging with the actual substance of how Bitcoin is issued, and instead says uses the vague-but-sinister-sounding word "corporations" to imply that Bitcoin is generically bad to low-sophistication viewers. | | |
| ▲ | georgemcbay a day ago | parent [-] | | Crypto, including Bitcoin, is bad. And doesn't really solve any of the problems it claims to solve. If it did solve any of those problems in a real and practical way, it wouldn't need an increasingly powerful lobby spending hundreds of millions of dollars so far on this year's US elections (nearly 40% of all corporate election spending in 2026). Crypto in 2026 is just another financial engineering scam looking for ways to grab the money of pensioners, etc. |
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| ▲ | rvz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is the same author that attempted to short bitcoin and lost most of his money. [0] Perhaps that is why he is upset about cryptocurrencies. But the true scam is the complete debasement of the US dollar and people will slowly realize why the dollar will always be worth less than it was 40 years ago as it continues to be printed to zero and number go up with stocks and crypto. It is also the reason why some people are crying that $1m is not enough to retire on, and they are right. Because $1m is worth less today than it was 40 years ago. Hence why people here need >$500k and above a year to live, when in reality, it is the fiat currency becoming more worthless over time. Sounds like a scam in the long term. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jul/15/ben-mck... |
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| ▲ | catlifeonmars 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Where do you live where you need to make $500k and above to live in the US? Silicon Valley? If so, that’s definitely the exception rather than the rule. > Because $1m is worth less today than it was 40 years ago. And? $1 is also worth less than it was 40 years ago. You also make more than the same person would doing the same thing 40 years ago, so that’s not a useful comparison. If you want to make statements about standards of living, you need to use the same measuring stick. You can use inflation adjusted values to do so. | | |
| ▲ | rvz 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Where do you live where you need to make $500k and above to live in the US? Silicon Valley? I live in reality. > If so, that’s definitely the exception rather than the rule. Ask anyone in a HCOL area in the US and it is hardly an "exception". > And? $1 is also worth less than it was 40 years ago. You also make more than the same person would doing the same thing 40 years ago, so that’s not a useful comparison. If you want to make statements about standards of living, you need to use the same measuring stick. You can use inflation adjusted values to do so. That depends on the occupation. You also didn't make any point and just casually accepted getting scammed on the debasement of your own fiat currency. | | |
| ▲ | catlifeonmars a day ago | parent [-] | | > Ask anyone in a HCOL area in the US and it is hardly an "exception". By definition this is an exception because there are simultaneously places in the US with a low cost of living. If it had something to do with USD, wouldn’t you see the effect everywhere in the US, without exception? I think we see a lot of _disparity_ in cost of living. Again, not sure what this has to do with the value of USD. > You also didn't make any point and just casually accepted getting scammed on the debasement of your own fiat currency. You say this, but you don’t explain the mechanism of how this works. Maybe I’m too dumb, can you spell it out for me? What’s the scam exactly? |
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| ▲ | 2muchcoffeeman 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | He doubled down on his thesis. Shorted again, and made a bunch of money. So I guess, he was right? | | |
| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 2 days ago | parent [-] | | He did say that half the documentary funding came from shorting Bitcoin. Which works of you time the cycles correctly, and fails terribly if you don't (see: FTX, Celsius, many others). |
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| ▲ | bluecalm a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >>But the true scam is the complete debasement of the US dollar and people will slowly realize why the dollar will always be worth less than it was 40 years ago as it continues to be printed to zero and number go up with stocks and crypto. Any workable currency needs inflation.
If you don't have inflation then holding currency is a free call option on the future - it's always more profitable to hold it instead of real assets as holding real assets is risky (not only that those assets lose value but that other assets gain more value). As nothing is free in nature someone else is paying for your free call option. Things are even worse with deflationary currency. This is what Bitcoin maximalist imagine: a few kings that hold it and everyone else working for them. If anything 2% inflation target is too low to offset that cost. I think it should be considerably higher. As it is protecting the call option of currency holders is often more important for central banks than economic development. | | |
| ▲ | JuniperMesos a day ago | parent [-] | | Inflation of the USD is considerably higher than 2% and has been for a while now. |
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| ▲ | latchkey 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the dollar will always be worth less than it was 40 years ago at this point, you don't even have to go that far back. | |
| ▲ | TMWNN 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > But the true scam is the complete debasement of the US dollar and people will slowly realize why the dollar will always be worth less than it was 40 years ago as it continues to be printed to zero and number go up with stocks and crypto. By contrast, there was essentially no inflation in England from 1614 to the start of WW1. | | |
| ▲ | Yokohiii 2 days ago | parent [-] | | By contrast, england could summon anything from their colonies. |
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| ▲ | fechols 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| "In fact, 99% of cryptocurrencies are scams..." Almost got it! Just one more percent and you'll have it figured out. |
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| ▲ | wheelerwj 2 days ago | parent [-] | | 99% of phone calls i receive are scams. Clearly we should ban phones. |
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