- 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.
Maybe I’m thinking more Richard Stalman than Linus Torvalds. But if he made Linux to promote freedom from corporates, then it seems like he should like cryptocurrency because it’s open source as well and permits freedom from government inflation. Humanity has never had a money not controlled by governments, except for gold and silver, and those are not easily sent over the internet.
Just because it’s open?
Being open source is a big deal.
What’s the point there? No one has to like something just because it is open.
Fair enough, that should be a point in its favor though, at the very least. Our entire banking system runs on closed source proprietary software that people cannot inspect for vulnerabilities on generally closed source operating systems that people cannot inspect for vulnerabilities.
In that case, though, why should it matter if Linus Torvalds promotes it? Something is a money if it is generally accepted as payment; gold and silver have self-evident value to people, and governments can use violence to ensure the value of money, but celebrity endorsement is hardly a reason to accept something as money.
Exactly. In Linux, he is God. In the rest of the world, he’s just your average dude. It doesn’t matter what he thinks.
He (Linus Torvalds) made Linux as a hobby during his time in college/university to teach him about operating system design. Because it was the part of the operating system called the kernel that the GNU project didn’t have yet (more on this in a moment), it became very popular. Richard Stallman created the GNU project because he believed that every person should have the right to study and share the software that runs on their computer.
There is nothing specifically anti-corporate in either of their motivations.
Being open source does not make it good by default.
The ledger being visible to every node makes it pretty bad. You can figure out the identity of users just by circumstantial evidence.
And just because it’s not controlled by the government doesn’t mean, there aren’t powerful corporate people inside that can and will enact control over the chain. Otherwise Ethereum classic wouldn’t exist and Jordan Belford or Peter Thiel wouldn’t be fans of crypto.