Technology

60033 readers

2986 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1597

Linux Inventor Says He Doesn’t Believe in Crypto (u.today)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

674 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Almost. If you own a share of a company, you own a share of something fungible, namely literal company property or IP. Even if the company went bankrupt, you own a sliver of their real product (real estate, computers, patented processes). So while you may be speculating on the wealth associated with the company, it is not a scam in the sense that it isn’t a non fungible entity. The sole value of crypto currency is in its speculative value, it is not tied in theory or in practice to something of perceptibly equal realized value. A dividend is just giving you return on profit made from realized assets (aforementioned real estate or other company property or processes), but the stock itself is intrinsically tied to the literal ownership of those profit generating assets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Everything you just said is only true for stocks that pay dividends now, or may pay dividends in the future.

It is not true for companies with zero intention of ever paying dividends.

Even if the company went bankrupt, you own a sliver of their real product

Historically, when that happens, the creditors walk away with the assets. The shareholders get nothing.

but the stock itself is intrinsically tied to the literal ownership of those profit generating assets.

That's the scam. It's not. In practice, the sole value of a zero-dividend stock is the speculative value.

it is not tied in theory or in practice to something of perceptibly equal realized value.

Electricity has value. Crypto value is intrinsically tied to mining costs. Even if you have access to a free source of power like your own solar panels, you have to weigh the cost effectiveness of mining against the revenue from using your panels to backfeed the grid, selling power back to the power companies.

Because crypto is tied to something of utilitarian value, and zero-dividend stocks are tied only to the whims of investors, the stocks are actually a significantly greater scam than the crypto.