Re: [CFRG] Bitcoin delenda est. Was: Escalation: time commitment to fix *production* security bugs for BLS RFC v4?

[Daniel Franke <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 1:29 PM Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> As a human being living on a planet threatened by environmental damage
> from CO2 emissions, I am strongly opposed to any IETF work to support any
> form of purported 'cryptocurrency' that relies on any form of 'proof of
> work' or 'proof of waste'.
>
> The electricity requirements of cryptocurrencies have been larger than
> that of entire countries. This is an experiment that it is time to stop.
>
> I am entirely serious in this position.
>
>
> Besides the environmental issues, there is the fact that the
> crypto-currency community has consistently failed to establish any
> effective means of preventing the endemic frauds in their systems.
> Fraudulent exchanges regularly steal money from their customers.
> Applications developed by individuals with minimal expertise are used for
> transfers of vast quantities of fictional cash with no effective oversight
> and this results in further frauds.
>
> The cryptocurrency community has a long history of misrepresenting the
> engagement of parties with established reputations as endorsing their
> 'product'. And this presents real risk to the IETF when the least
> objectionable use of the product in question is to evade currency controls.
> Cryptocurrency became popular as a means of paying for illegal drugs and
> has since become the enabler for ransomware.
>
> The cryptocurrency world has no shortage of people who will trash anyone
> criticizing their activities as 'stupid', 'uninformed', 'need to do some
> research'. Fine, let them sort their own messes out.
>
> IETF should take no action that risks a headline 'IETF endorses
> cryptocurrency'. If the ransomware, child abuse and Ponzi scheme industries
> have a problem as a result of a bad technology decision, we should not lift
> a finger to save them.
>
>
> The only conversations I want to have on cryptocurrencies is with
> government regulators looking for ways to regulate these criminal
> facilitation enterprises out of existence as they previously did with
> eGold, Gold Age and BTC's very long line of predecessors which like BTC
> were entirely different but completely the same.
>

 I share your alarm at the economic waste and environmental harm inherent
in proof-of-work-based cryptocurrency. (I do not share your other
objections, and see great promise in permissioned and proof-of-stake-based
blockchains). But what does this have to do with the instant draft? We're
not specifying a proof-of-work function. We're specifying a pairing-based
signature scheme — something with myriad applications beyond
cryptocurrency. Your argument reminds me of demands that we compromise, or
not build, end-to-end encryption schemes because they will be useful to
terrorists. The IETF has categorically rejected those arguments. Why should
we accept yours?