- 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.
It’s interesting to see Torvalds emerge as a kind of based tech hero. I’m thinking here also of his rant not long ago on social.kernel.org (a kernel devs microblog instance) that was essentially a pretty good anti-anti-leftism tirade in true Torvalds fashion.
EDIT:
Torvalds’s anti-anti-left post (I was curious to read it again):
I think you might want to make sure you don’t follow me.
Because your “woke communist propaganda” comment makes me think you’re a moron of the first order.
I strongly suspect I am one of those “woke communists” you worry about. But you probably couldn’t actually explain what either of those words actually mean, could you?
I’m a card-carrying atheist, I think a woman’s right to choose is very important, I think that “well regulated militia” means that guns should be carefully licensed and not just randomly given to any moron with a pulse, and I couldn’t care less if you decided to dress up in the “wrong” clothes or decided you’d rather live your life without feeling tied to whatever plumbing you were born with.
And dammit, if that all makes me “woke”, then I think anybody who uses that word as a pejorative is a f*cking disgrace to the human race. So please just unfollow me right now.
It’s interesting to see Torvalds emerge as a kind of based tech hero.
It’s just that almost everyone else that could do it ended up being fucking ghouls of people.
Torvalds can be… brusque, sure. But he doesn’t support child labor, he doesn’t cheat on his wife, and he isn’t some crazy cult leader waging a war against workers’ rights.
Another interesting thing to consider.
To be clear, he is rich. But he’s not crazy crazy rich, like nowhere near billionaire status.
With that in mind, his kernel is a key component of RedHat’s, SuSE’s and Canonical whole business, with at least two of those being multi billion dollar businesses.
His kernel is a key component of Android phones, which represent over 50 billion a year in hardware spend, and a bunch of software money on top of that.
His kernel is foundational to most hosting/cloud services with just mind blowing billions of revenue quarterly.
It’s used in almost every embedded device on the planet, networking gear, set top boxes, thermostats, televisions, just nearly everything.
People with a fraction of that sort of relevance are billionaires several times over. A number of billionaires owe much of their success to him. Yet he is not among their numbers.
Now there’s more to things than just a kernel to be sure, but across the hundreds of billions of dollars made while running Linux, there was probably plenty of room for him to carve out a few billion for himself were he that sort of person, but he cares about the work more than gaming the dollars. I have a great deal of respect for that.
Means that while he may not always be right, but I at least believe his assessments are sincere and not trying to drive some grift or cover some insecurity about being left behind.
gitis a way more important contribution to the world that the linux kernel IMO. Its basically the assembly line of almost all modern software production. And Linus actually wrote most of the initial code for it. With Linux he organized the project but was almost immediately not a major contributor. He developed git in the process of maintaining the linux repo.I disagree. Git is great but we’d have done fine with Subversion or whatever. Could you imagine the whole internet running on Windows Server though? The thought alone makes my skin crawl.
You probably need to learn a bit more about VCS fundamentals if you think Subversion would’ve been fine.
I’m old enough to remember the SVN days (he’ll, even the CVS and…dare I say it… source safe days).
Git is fantastic. It’s pretty universally uses because it’s the best dvcs out there and it’s free. It wipes the pants with the likes of mercurial.
In certain industries (such as gaming) there’s still a strong hold by perforce but we can ignore that as it’s proprietary and a bit specialised.
Anyway, as great as git is for making things easier and cleaner when dealing with distributed development, it by no means makes something impossible “possible” - it just makes it a hell of a lot easier.
The Linux kernel on the other hand enabled a lot of impossible things. Remember back in the day there wasn’t anything free and open source in the operating system world, it was all proprietary and licensed. If you wanted to create your own operating system, you basically had no option but to spend a fortune either writing your own kernel or licensing someone else’s (and the licensing part means you cannot distribute it for free).
The fact that the FSF has always wanted to write their own OS and never been able to achieve it without the Linux Kernel, in spite of them essentially writing “everything else” that makes up an operating system, shows just how nontrivial this is.
Free software would be just using freebsd or whatever, it wouldn’t be that different
git is why we can’t have nice things
There’s many better VCS, but everyone just goes on GitHub and uses git.
I dread ever having to touch it. The CLI is unintuitive, the snapshot system is confusing, and may God have mercy on your soul if you mix merging and rebasing
Well, I think Linus Torvalds is one of the rare rich people who actually “deserves” being rich.
I think the main motive behind leftism should be stopping 8 people from owning the 50% of the world’s wealth, not to distribute Linus Torvalds’ 50 million dollars which a well deserved amount of wealth for someone who created the OS which runs the modern world.
Besides, what Linus owns is not even a droplet compared to billionaires like Bezos, Musk or Bill Gates
I think it’s a shining example of the ‘right’ sort of rich. Despite a significance that overwhelmingly exceeds usual billionaire level, he’s not nearly so ‘rich’ and yet he has enough to just not worry about money, but he has earned it.
I remember this. That was a great day to be on the internet.
That guy seems pretty rad.
I wonder what direction the Linux kernel will go once he’s gone. Obviously it will continue to go on and Torvalds should get a statue somewhere if he doesn’t already have one.
I don’t follow thinigs closely at all, but I’m under the impression he’s already starting to kinda take his hands off of the wheel? If so, maybe that picture is emerging now, at least behind the scenes.
Linus hasn’t written kernel code in years at this point, however he still is the final gate keeper of what gets merged and an active code reviewer, he manages the entire direction of the project.
As of what will happen when Linus passes, that’s already been decided. The position of projects leader will go to his most trusted project co-maintainer, which we have a good idea of who that is.
For the uninformed, who is that?
There are a few candidates, the most prominent are probably :
- Greg Kroah-Hartman: Played a pivotal role in stabilizing the memory management subsystem and enhancing block I/O performance, both critical areas for system stability and performance.
- Sage Sharp (formally Sarah Sharp) : Instrumental in the development and maintenance of the networking subsystem and the ARM architecture code, ensuring compatibility and efficient networking for various ARM-based devices.
- Git Junio Hamano: Maintainer of Git, the version control system that underpins Linux development. His leadership in maintaining Git ensures smooth collaboration and efficient code management for the vast kernel developer community.
Greg Kroah-Hartman is speculated to be the most likely candidate, but it also depends on a few factors. Like, if Linus dies suddenly vs dying slowly or just stepping down, there’d be a big difference in selection process.
Ofc, things may change in the future and there’s many other talented developers who can be considered. Nothing is set in stone.
Its good to see some antileftism once in a while. We need some other perspectives. I didn’t think we’d get it from Linus but here we are.
You might want to re-read that.
I fucking hate that the crypto currency ghouls have captured the word “crypto”. When I first read this I was wondering why in the fuck would Linus not like cryptography. My brain is old and crypto will always mean cryptography.
We just got to wait it out. Gods willing, it’ll come back to meaning cryptography again.
Still waiting for the Swastika/Manji to be de-nazified. Probably not gonna see it in my lifetime, unfortunately.
Behind the Bastards had a great few episodes about how a group of indigenous Americans chose to give up their sacred symbol that looked like a swastika because of the Nazis. Pretty sad but i guess fascists ruin everything.
Linus creates kernels. Nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Tech is tech, but I wouldn’t necessarily listen to him about other things than kernels and computers. For example, he doesn’t even believe in FOSS, and he openly supports Google because of Android, Chromebooks and ChromeOS using Linux.
Holy shit, the crypto bros are really triggered by this, out in full force in the comments. If the only argument you can bring for crypto is that you make/made money on it, that sounds a lot like a Ponzi scheme
I mean not to mention the ridiculous amount of electricity it uses, and heat generated. but hey it’s low priority even though every year lately is the hottest in record.
For clarification. To my understanding, the older cryptographic currencies use an immense amount of power (Proof of Work). But newer models have solved that issue by switching to a Proof of Stake model instead.
It is a Ponzi scheme. Very clearly one. How that garbage is legal, I will never know. I could have gotten into crypto from the ground floor eons ago and made tons of money but I didn’t because I knew it was illegal and figured the whole thing was going to collapse as soon as governments found out about it. Imagine my shock when most legitimized the damn thing. Still wouldn’t bother even if I could go back and do it again knowing the brain dead, money-greedy idiots are going to legalize a literal Ponzi scheme because I have values and morals.
Is this going to be the most replied to post on the Fediverse? 635 in 2 days and still going strong.
Edit: since it’s now at 666 replies, please nobody make any more comments
The value of a crypto token is ostensibly related to the value of the apps which the blockchain supports. It’s meant to be both a form of compensation for participating in the network, and as currency for purchasing services from blockchain apps. That’s how it derives intrinsic value. So if there is social media which runs on a blockchain, then the hosts within that blockchain get tokens for participating, and eg, advertisements or subscriptions are purchased in tokens. This means those who manage those participant nodes can sell their tokens to those who want to buy blockchain services. As the cumulative value of these services grows, an entire crypto economy is established, and it becomes effectively another form of fiat which has a real exchange rate backed by some real economic activity.
This is how it’s supposed to work. The problem is that we just don’t have any compelling apps, and the initial speculation has all but ensured that this cannot happen organically because the market cap is already just so much bigger than any realistic medium term outlook for intrinsic value. Bitcoin’s blockchain would have to support some form application value which is bigger than the biggest companies in the world, and right now it basically has zero useful applications.
Crypto is just a waste of resources, similar to AI
POS does not consume resources.
This goes to show how low-effort the criticism campaigns are.
However… all cryptos have their health tied to bitcoin which is a large energy consumer. So the point is actually still very true (due to some other reason).Ai has function. Unlike crypto
deleted by creator
Thank goodness. Such a useless technology.
Scratch that… it’s not useless, because it’s great for scams and fraud. It’s actively harmful.
Crypto means cryptography, stop using it to talk about cryptocurrency.
Yeah, that headline is very misleading. Crypto(graphy) is essential for the digital world to exist whereas the other stuff is a pyramid & money laundering scheme.
It’s useful for buying drugs online on the dark web so I for one like it
All the fentanyl you can snort.
So the equivalent of the population of the United States plus 40% are money-londerers. Because somewhere between five and seven percent of the world’s population uses cryptocurrency and that’s 400 million to 550 million people.
I doubt it
Increasing demographics might initially be attributed to a rise in the number of accounts and improvements in identification. In 2021, however, crypto adoption continued as companies like Tesla and Mastercard announced their interest in cryptocurrency. Consumers in Africa, Asia, and South America were most likely to be an owner of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in 2022.
That’s functionally the nut of it. People in countries that lack a traditional western banking sector but enjoy internet access can piggyback on the network of banks with crypto-interfaces. This is more a consequence of the unregulated wing of the financial sector than an raw utility of cryptocurrency itself.
If WellsFargo won’t ratify me as a client, but Coinbase will, I’m stuck dealing in bitcoin simply because I can’t get a credit card denominated in USD.
It’s not “misleading,” because the vast majority of people understand what the current colloquial use of crypto is.
A certain irony in a synonym for “secret” being a term everyone’s implicitly familiar with.
Is it not clear which definition of Crypto he’s using?
Linus coming out against cryptography seems so unrealistically silly to me that it’s not even worth considering.
The security of Linux 2000 will be based entirely on steganography, Linux founder announces
good luck, I’m sure this comment will change how everyone talks from now on.
Cryptocurrency is a currency based on cryptographic keys.
Crypto means hidden, stop using it to talk about cryptography.
Crypto currencies doesn’t mean “hidden currency”, it means currency based on cryptography.
They meant that choosing one possible definition and saying it’s what the word means is stupid. Words mean pretty much what everyone agrees they mean. Look at all the words that have basically flipped definitions since their inception. Just because the modern derivative of a word means something literally everyone understands but is slightly different than what it used to mean doesn’t mean the oldest answer is the correct one. Unwad your jock.
Linus is already a multimillionaire, he doesn’t need a pump and dump.
If after 16 years you still have to be asked if you believe in crypto, then chances are that it is a scam.
For all the reasons that crypto is a scam, every “value” stock - stock which does not now, and never has any intention of ever paying dividends - is also a scam.
Behind a value stock is a profitable company. Behind crypto-tokens is a hilariously inefficient database with no application in real life.
Gamble away your money, I’ll take the stock - or “have fun staying poor” like crypto-token morons like to say.
Good point, I always wondered if there is a way the technology will evolve and somehow find a niche that’s unexpected. But you’re right, 16 years is a long time to be meandering.
It’s such a first-world thing to not understand all the good that crypto has done. There are countless lives that have been financially saved by having a safe place to hold wealth while their countries’ fiat collapsed. It’s just a short matter of time until many first world folks understand this as well.
Sounds like the same shit those rare metal guys are always yapping about but with extra scams…
He is just like me. I don’t mess with the chucky cheese token money.
Its just a big money laundering scheme
And/or a fucking casino
A bad one, at that. I think the reason many governments are going with it is because it’s far less untraceable than some idiots like to believe.
So you are saying more than the population of the United States as money launderers because somewhere between 400 and 550 million people use cryptocurrency. I kind of doubt they are all money launderers.
Why not? Couldn’t crypto be enabling money laundering on a massive scale?
This one is a bit old, but… https://medium.com/@MUBC/privacy-coins-debunking-myths-about-illegal-usage-9150c49a31a7
I can’t find it at the moment, but I saw a report for 2023 or 2024 that something like 0.4% of all crypto transactions are illicit activity. So that would mean roughly 1.9 million people use it for such activity, which is a far cry from 400 million.
I fucking guarantee that Linus Torvalds DOES believe in cryptography. Stop calling cryptocurrency “crypto”, because “crypto” is short for cryptography, not cryptocurrency.
shut the fuck up, nerd.
I guess we should all get rid of our bitcoin that’s worth hundreds of times more than when we bought it, because an operating system kernel developer doesn’t like it.
Linus is awesome but he’s not a god, his opinion of things outside the Linux kernel is just the opinion of a guy. Stop worshipping him, he doesn’t even like it.
