Un pensiero interessante di Douglas Rushkoff, pubblicato il primo marzo, sul tentativo di appropriazione della valuta via blockchain proprio da parte del sistema che Bitcoin doveva disintermediare. Di oggi un invito del direttore del Fondo Mondiale Internazionale a riprendere il controllo sovrano sulle cryptocurrencies, che segue un analogo appello del direttore della banca d'Inghilterra che sollecita una loro regolazione, chiaramente in nome della lotta al terrorismo, del riciclaggio e commercio di droga. Di seguito le fonti. Ciao, Alberto /1/ How Bitcoin Ends Is the cryptocurrency just going to end up reenforcing the financial system it was supposed to disrupt? <https://www.fastcompany.com/40537404/how-bitcoin-ends> Bitcoin was a clever idea. Idealistic, even. But it isn’t working out quite as its developers imagined. In fact, once all the coin has been mined, bitcoin will simply reinforce the very banking system it was invented to disrupt. Watching the bitcoin phenomenon is a bit like watching the three-decade decline of the internet from a playspace for the counterculture to one for venture capitalists. We thought the net would break the monopoly of top-down, corporate media. But as business interests took over it has become primarily a delivery system for streaming television to consumers, and consumer data to advertisers. Likewise, bitcoin was intended to break the monopoly of the banking system over central currency and credit. But, in the end, it will turn into just another platform for the big banks to do the same old extraction they always have. Here’s how. [] So what will really happen when all the bitcoin is mined? The people and companies currently authenticating transactions for coin will instead insist on service fees. The more processing power and electricity it takes to authenticate, the more they will want to be paid. Already, financial institutions like banks and brokerage houses are rising to the occasion, promoting their own blockchain– as well as authentication services for those who want to keep using existing cryptocurrencies. So instead of disrupting and replacing the banking industry and its fees, bitcoin and other blockchains simply feed into the banking monopolies. They don’t disrupt banking, they reify it, only they do so through obscenely wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of processing power and computing hardware. Bitcoin may have been meant to disintermediate the agents of trust who monopolized commerce and currency. Like the internet, it was meant to engender trust by connecting people directly to one another. But all it really did was substitute for trust in a new way–with computer cycles instead of a human or institutional middleman. [] /2/ 'Fight fire with fire': IMF's Lagarde calls for bitcoin crackdown IMF chief says cryptocurrency’s own blockchain technology could be used to control it <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/13/imf-christine-lagarde-cal...> Christine Lagarde has called for a crackdown on bitcoin by using the technology behind the digital currency to “fight fire with fire”. The head of the International Monetary Fund said authorities around the world could harness the potential of cryptocurrencies to help bring them under control, warning that failure to do so would allow the unfettered development of a “potentially major new vehicle for money laundering and the financing of terrorism”. [] /3/ <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/02/bitcoin-faces-regulatory-cr...> The Bank of England has warned that bitcoin faces a regulatory crackdown, warning that “inherently risky” cryptocurrencies are failing to fulfil their most basic function as money. Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, used a speech in London on Friday to attack a situation of “anarchy” in the trading of cryptocurrencies, with the market having grown rapidly on unregulated exchanges. He said the time had come to “regulate elements of the crypto-asset ecosystem to combat illicit activities”. His warning comes amid growing efforts around the world to bring bitcoin under the control of central banks and governments, amid fears of consumers losing money at the hands of market manipulation. There are also growing efforts to curb the risk of cryptocurrencies being used for money laundering, financing terrorism and drug dealing. []