User Reviews

They shouldn't names this episode Bitcoin, a lot of the information felt like common knowledge.

Let's start by saying this episode focuses on only the first cryptocurrency ever made; bitcoin. If you're going to make an informational video about cryptocurrency in general, at least research the topic well enough or change the title to what you really talk about in this episode. While it's entirely true that mining costs a lot of resources and damages the environment, or that bitcoin could only do 7 transactions per second; coins like NANO could do 7000+ transactions per second entirely free without damage to the environment and instantly. But I guess you didn't research enough to talk about that?

And also, bitcoin is not anonymous. If you had researched about cryptocurrency you would know that coins like Monero are actually anonymous, bitcoin is just decentralized and old, and that's a whole different thing.

Some questions I was hoping this show would address:

How is the value of cryptocurrency determined?

What is cryptocurrency "mining," and how is it done?

How does one spend cryptocurrency in a "mom-and-pop" store?

Has a blockchain ever been hacked?

Has a hacker ever successfully robbed someone else's cryptocurrency?

Do all cryptocurrencies use the same blockchain?

How does an individual or private entity go about offering/selling a new cryptocurrency?

Unfortunately, the show didn't answer any of these questions. In fact, everything "explained" in this episode is basically just common knowledge.

An examination of cryptocurrency, its origins and how it works.

Despite its episodes being less than 20 minutes long, Explained generally packs in all the essential information on a subject. There's enough there to educate you. Plus, the content is quite objective, this despite some of the potentially controversial subjects it's had.

This episode is an exception. There's detail on its origins and the mechanics of transactions but the producers skirt the most important question: what intrinsic value does a cryptocurrency have and what determines its market value? They skirt it because the crypto producers would freak out when they point out that it has no intrinsic value and its market value is determined by people talking it up.

More than avoiding this they have someone say that it is like gold in terms of intrinsic value. Well, no. Gold is a physical commodity with practical uses. Cryptocurrency doesn't exist in any form, it's just created out of nothing. Even national currencies are backed by the assets of the country's central bank.

Then they roll out all the snake oil salesman saying how great crypto is and why you should buy it. Of course they're going to say that: due to having substantial positions in crypto they have an interest in demand increasing and the price going up. It's really just a giant Ponzi scheme and they're at the top of the pyramid.

The producers could at least have had someone point out what I just did, but they didn't. There's no dissenting voices (except a few talking about hackability and energy consumption), just rows of people with vested interests saying how great crypto is.