A few hypothesis:

Because "cryptocurrencies" (i prefer to refer to them as "cyber-ponzi")...

• ...are a purely speculative asset, similar to the wild unregulated globalized finance that is ruining the world and increasing inequalities?
• ...are controled in vast majority by a techno-elite of (mostly white) men with access to computing power and extra cpital? (this replacing one elite by another)
• ...are an ecological catastrophe?
• ...are a model based on universal mistrust? (we tust nobody so we ALL have to re-do the same cryptographic operations)
• ...make some un-knowledgeable people fall into ponzi-like schemes where they actually do lose some money?
• ...make some companies immensely rich, that profit on the hype (exchanges, Ethereum, NFT "minters" etc.)
• ...devoid the concepts of cryptography and decentralization to put them entirely at the service of commercial/financial interests?
• ...turn otherwise educated and smart people into biggots sounding like they are coming straight out of a cult? (it's not new about us nerds, but in that case when linked with means of subsistance and/or of getting rich is getting particularly deeply engrained)
• ... drive the price of electronic components at record high, somehow at the exact opposite of narrative of "democratizing blah blah..."
• ... made some assholes like Musk and others even more immensely rich..?

Will keep looking for some more, I am sure we can find them :)

I don't hate it, but they've lost their original purpose. Once a lot of people started flooding in a lot of them while the projects were good at first ultimately turned into a huge cult following lead by certain "influencers". There's also a lot of concerns for the environment with them. That's definitely something that can be worked on though. It will never be energy free but there can be optimizations made and renewable energy can be used.

It's mainly the perception. Just a few years ago everyone loved cryptocurrencies but when people started talking about the environment with them, people started turning coat. Some people, this is also my stance, just want certain things to be crypto and some not. I don't want to have to think about money while I browse the internet and blockchain interactions.

A lot of the Firefox users in particular are mad at Mozilla especially about the environmental concern, because Mozilla has climate commitments that they've made and people feel like they're betraying those by accepting crypto donations. (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-climate-commitments/).

Another major reason is just simply that people don't like change and are worried about companies abusing cryptocurrency for their own gain.

Keep in mind with me making this I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't been into crypto for about two years now, but was before. I may have some facts wrong but these are the reasons I've gathered on why people are upset at Mozilla over this. And some for crypto as a whole.

I've been using and following cryptocurrencies since 2014, cryptocurrencies today are no longer trying to make decentralized currencies. Today, most cryptos are hyper-speculative "get-rich-quick" schemes with virtually no practical and legal use cases. The environmental impacts of cryptos have been discussed ad nauseum, so I won't beat this dead horse. What I find most insidious is that the crypto ecosystem at its core is no longer an effort to create a decentralized currency, but to commodify literally everything in the world. e.g. Grid Coin, Sweat Coin, Ethereum NFTs such as Propy.

I started with libertarian views, but I have been overwhelmingly convinced that this universal commodification and market making is incompatible with ethical and equitable resource distribution. Most cryptos I am aware of are fundamentally regressive designs that favor early adopters and wealthy investors by disadvantaging the average user.

Below are my notes on various consensus algorithms: Proof of Work = Fundamentally unscalable, incredibly wasteful. Proof of Stake = Fundamentally regressive. Byzantine Fault Tolerance = Federated / Centralized, this defeats the purpose of crypto. Proof of Capacity = Fundamentally regressive. Proof of Burn = Fundamentally wasteful and deflationary. Proof of Activity = Hybrid POW & POS, incredibly wasteful and fundamentally regressive.

Proof of Elapsed Time = Probably the most promising, but currently very rare.

Lots of reasons: perception of energy waste of proof of work, insertion of blockchain into contexts where it makes no sense, hate of money in general due to being anti capitalist, hate of the idea of non-state controlled money, hate of highly speculative nature, hate of VC culture and hate the redefinition of decentralisation to mean blockchain

Speaking as someone who worked for a crypto company, went to the hugely expensive crypto conferences etc.

And ignoring the environmental impact (we should all realize at this point the insane amount of energy that crypto uses. And I really don’t care that some of them are optimizing. There’s so many of the damn things now that it hardly matters)

1: hardware sustainability. I’ll admit, I whined over this primarily because I wanted a nice graphics card to play games and render animations, and now that’s too expensive to happen any time soon.

But, we’re also running into a situation where the physical resources to make this kind of hardware are becoming a bit more difficult to obtain. You think this is just bad for the people who want (need, at this point) phones, computers etc, but it’s also bad for crypto fundamentally. This gap is created now between the people maintaining and updating the blockchain. Only the wealthy few will be able to afford the “farms” required for this

2: it’s a Ponzi scheme/pyramid scheme

I know. This is the one people hate to hear, because it ruins the entire philosophy crypto is supposed to be built on.

It goes hand in hand with the innate value of each coin or token. A coin’s value is so closely tied to the amount of fiat that people have invested in it that it’s impossibly for it not to become a Ponzi scheme. In order for it to be a legitimate currency, it has to actually be pulled from fiat markets and be used independently.

That’s not going to happen though, because they are already making a great deal of legitimate money

Because we're in a middle of a climate disaster and crypto wastes astounding amounts of energy. Bitcoin mining in particular consumes more energy than is used by entire countries. So, while there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of digital currency, current implementations are an environmental disaster.

Because I cannot find a single use case where it's actually practical.

I don't hate it. We need a digital asset that serves the function of physical cash for digital transactions. Crypto offers a very elegant solution. From what I have read, the nano foundation (nanocurrency) is currently the most focused group pushing to make this a reality in practice. I think that people dislike crypto because most of its value comes from speculation. People buy it because they think that the price will go up. The technology is far from perfect but I think that we need to start somewhere.

It is a deterritorialization force.

I'm talking specifically in the context of types of cryptocurrencies most cryptoheads are fans of. These don't apply to things like China's Digital Yuan.

In no particular order:

• Horrible for the environment.

• Is partly responsible for the ongoing hardware shortage and scalping epidemic.

• The epitome of capitalism: Playground for investors, essentially giant virtual casinos. Most cryptoheads seem to be fixated exclusively on the idea of making quick money without having to do any actual work.

• Riddled with outright scams.

• Unregulated, extremely unstable, and therefore almost useless for real financial transactions.

it's peak capitalism

Because you can't control and enslave people with it.

I really only dislike proof of work. Otherwise I think crypto is cool.

hm... it seems there is kinda power behind pow hysteria, I doubt that forces that push this narrative are about ecology or something like that, I suppose they just want to aggresively promote pos as alternative to pow. And transition to pos also eqivocal as it transfer all power over blockchain to very tiny group of super wealthy people... of course pow almost has same problem, but at least it requiries hardware not only money, that makes manipulation a bit harder.

Interesting topic about waste of energy in general, what is effective use of it? Are server farms working to provide tiktok videos or instagram photos to millions could be consider as effective use of energy or as energy waste?

Because they've been told to hate it. Why does anyone ever hate anything that's never done them any harm?

They've been told to hate it because even if the first implementation is hot garbage, the later ones promise to be untaxable, unseizable, and invisible. If you're in the business of taxing, seizing, and spying, that's just bad.