paint-brush
I bet Pavel Durov wishes Telegram was like Bitcoinby@maken8
New Story

I bet Pavel Durov wishes Telegram was like Bitcoin

by M-Marvin KenAugust 29th, 2024
Read on Terminal Reader
Read this story w/o Javascript
tldt arrow

Too Long; Didn't Read

If Pavel Durov could be granted a wish, he'd make Telegram a little more like Bitcoin.
featured image - I bet Pavel Durov wishes Telegram was like Bitcoin
M-Marvin Ken HackerNoon profile picture

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov is under arrest by French authorities for little-known crimes related to illegal content on his platform.

You bet Durov wishes Telegram was like Bitcoin.


If only...

Baby Telegram needed Durov

Alas, Durov needed to be there for baby Telegram.

Unlike Satoshi Nakamoto, who could disappear to who knows where and watch as millions adopted Bitcoin without him, no social media network has ever grown, will ever grow, without the dedicated PR of its founder/CEO/owner.

Fanning the flames with bot fixes, suppressing/promoting outlier speech, and so on.


Telegram from 2013 would crash if it was run on our phones today.

Bitcoin from 2009-ish works well on your local node.

All you have to do is run one or two bug fixes like Greg here.

Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter all have their founder CEOs fanning the flames.

Twitter's CEO is literally its most dedicated fanboy.


Social Media is not fun if it is fully decentralized

Take Nostr, a 100% (and then some) decentralized platform.


If anything illegal were to be found on Nostr, the founder - fiatjaf - would very likely have no idea how to remove it.

He doesn't need a right to remain silent (if he were arrested).

He doesn't know sh*t.


So Nostr, dear reader, is what they call a fully decentralized media platform.


There are no servers. Like Bitcoin, there are only nodes owned by individuals.


The problem with this, though, is that the content is fragmented into thousands of disconnected (by encryption) nostr communes, so noise and hype travels really slowly through the network.


Contrast it with Twitter.


Noise and Hype are the food for crowd behavior, hence *viral* amounts of likes, retweets, mashups, reshares, and memes.


Have you ever seen a Nostr-native meme??


Yeah.

Didn't think so.


Bitcoin is money, not speech. Speech is corruptible


Everybody loves money.

But people sometimes hate even good words.


If your enemy sent you $ dollars, you'd gladly take them and run.

But if your enemy told you they love you, you better watch your back.


Bitcoin is anti-crime. With social media and 'Crypto,’ it depends


You're not a sheep.


But repeat this after me:


*Bitcoin is not good for criminals*


*Bitcoin is not good for criminals*


*Bitcoin is not good for criminals*


Don't take my word for it.

Below is the late John McAfee saying Bitcoin is actually useless because criminals and other dark web persons prefer Monero.




Why, Bitcoin has a public ledger, says McAfee.

Monero has a private ledger.

Criminals love ultra-private dark ledgers.


Drug dealers never disclose their Accounting books.


Meanwhile, Social Media platforms have public messages. Full of fun and nonsense scams.

This creates a lot of noise. Illegality loves noise.

It’s the perfect chance to move under the radar.

So don't blame Durov. Telegram is far from Bitcoin.


***