RE: Someone Tell John Oliver He Got The Whole Cryptocurrency Thing Wrong
Wow... i was just watching that video when i saw your post come up.
Honest question: Would you feel the same way if the show did the same with banks or other financial institutions? (He probably already did that, im just too lazy to look for it).
Here is a big problem in cryptocurrency world: There is too much bias around. Most of people who deal with cryptocurrencies have it.
Ok, he didn't went on wich are the fundamental advantages of bitcoin and other positive aspects of it, but why would he?
His show is exactly about using fair arguments to make fun of things that don't make sense. And a lot of things in the cryptocurrency world don't make sense.
And he actually did agreed with the most solid arguments towards cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
He made fun of aspects that have reasons to be made fun of. Moon, Lambo, Hodl... These are fun terms, and deserve to be made fun of.
And he talked a lot about EOS, and if this would be the reason that gave you mixed feelings don't be. He actually have a point. (BTW i do have some EOS)
EOS is only a promisse so far. There is nothing yet. May be awesome, may be a flop. It's not possible to know yet, and yes, we are all gambling on promisses.
It was a really good show. Brought up a lot of issues that exists in the cryptocurrency community, but everyone just want to ignore and not talk about it because they are too busy shilling the new altcoin.
I don't think the problem is the high level of "bias" in the crypto world. I don't think there's more "bias" in crypto than in religion, for instance.
What I find repelling in this show (I usually enjoy all John Oliver stuff) was the mix of ad hominem remarks with unsupported claims. By ad hominem I refer to what he said about Brock Pierce (what's the link between the man's wedding and crypto? just the fact that he has a shitload of money?). And by unsupported claims I refer to his opinions about EOS (it could have been any other crypto) which weren't backed by any other arguments than: "I can't be wrong". This mix, as laughable as it is, is not a good place to look at crypto from. It ridicules it and it makes it look small.
The reality is that there are more than $200 billion moving around in crypto every day, which is an enormous amount of money, and that should be taken a bit more seriously. When you bring on the table only extremes, from scams like BitConnect and yet to be launched projects like EOS, you miss a lot from the big picture and send a very twisted message.
This is a slippery slope, like I said.