When bitcoin and blockchain appeared on the scene I, like a lot of non-technical people, was fascinated. That fascination translated into positive reporting – to be honest, “naive” isn’t too strong a word for some of my stories – about bitcoin ATMs and “smart contracts” and better money transfers and banking the unbanked.

That was then, this is now. More than a decade of failure has forced even the naive among us to face the fact that there’s no good use for this intriguing technology and a lot of bad drawbacks, that its strengths either don’t exist or try to accomplish tasks that existing systems already do perfectly well and with many more safeguards.

But don’t take my worth for it – check out this long but detailed video (youTube here) by a software engineer named Adam R. Smith, which I found via Slashdot. It confirms my growing concern that the whole concept of blockchain-based transactions lies somewhere between misguided and outright scam.