Comic Transcript
B: Try to set aside your long-festering rage at cryptocurrency miners for a moment. The important thing here is that the community of miners are collectively responsible for ensuring that cryptocurrency transactions are legitimate.
A: “Collectively responsible?”
B: No cryptocurrency transaction can be written to the blockchain until enough members of that community vet and approve the transaction.
A: So if I try to send you a bitcoin, for example —
B: Then bitcoin miners see the transaction and multiple members of that community must approve it as valid. Once they do, it’s written to the blockchain.
A: That sounds annoying and slow.
B: Also expensive! That’s why they came up with workarounds to make the process faster. For example, two people can trade the private keys associated with cryptocurrency instead of the crypto themselves. Or they can rely on companies to manage crypto on their behalf.
A: How do they do that?
B: Uh… they sort of… store their cryptocurrency with the companies, which keeps track of all their transactions on a ledger, and trade with other, similar companies when necessary.
A: You’re telling me that in order to get away from the tyranny of banks, they created a monetary system that doesn’t require banks… which caused them to create banks.
B: They’re nothing like banks. They’re unregulated!
