Apologies in advance for the stereotypical cryptobro wall of text.
For context, here's what I do agree with: many of his criticisms about the people who are using it, how it's being used, and the collective culture surrounding it are on point. He makes some concessions on the environment talking point that I can respect. He is being extremely charitable considering how much of a mess crypto is, which I also respect. It was nice watching a video where someone had a solid understanding of the topic and had actually gone into crypto spaces to see how ridiculous they can be.
It felt like we were drawing on the same sources of information but came to slightly different conclusions. Which I think is healthy and good. Which is why I'm finally jumping in to say what I really think. I took some notes on some statements I had contention with. On a surface level, most of my contention stems from what appear to be from reasonable generalizations he makes to try to persuade viewers to stay away.
This is a criticism I have with many crypto-critical video essays that I've seen. How can we make it better? He does a masterful job explaining what is wrong in lieu of providing any meaningful solutions he seems to agree crypto could address. Right now, there are senate hearings happening with the big stablecoin issuers and centralized exchanges and policies are about to be made on this. Things are leaning in favor for crypto in those talks from what I've seen. If the current system is broken and crypto is broken, then what? It's unreasonable to expect anyone to provide a better solution to something to so inherently harmful, but in conjunction with the talking points below, it felt like the reasonable generalizations became hastier ones due primarily to this.
Realistically, that scene and the people arguing its points need to stop with the "it's the future" rhetoric. The future is bleak enough as it is. If something is broke, don't break it more. (Unless..?) The 'buy-in' nature of crypto and tokenizing of commodities are not new concepts. Insurance and unions the way he explains them do not sound like they need to be tokenized. These three talking points encapsulate what I generally see as a fundamental misunderstanding of the potential cryptocurrency has, they are necessary talking points that 'cryptobros' definitely need to be hearing.
Most DAOs aren't even decentralized since they require a single point of entry to create them in the first place. With MakerDAO they resigned and now it's purely in the hands of the people who hold it. You'll see software like Tezos have its own automated governance (self-adjusting protocols.) But then you'll see projects like he mentioned that are all like: 'look at my revolutionary inu yasha DAO that breaks the geneva convention and is probably a felony in Florida.' There is plenty of potential here I could see being helpful if they were better regulated.
Grifting isn't a necessary component in order to think critically in a positive direction toward crypto or use it. I'm an anarcho-collectivist but I'm also a trans disabled swer (idpol much?) As such, I'm poor and part of a vulnerable subsection of society prone to scams. I cannot There is no such thing as 'getting rich quick.' For example, just because selling cutco knives is inherently scammy does not mean the selling of knives is scammy. Dishonest people will always figure out a way to rob you and convince you it was your idea no matter what arena you are in. At least knives have permanent real-world value, I suppose. It would never be a smart move for someone like me to jump into investment, expensive art trading culture, or anything where I would need to 'buy-in' on a consistent basis or depend on me doing dollar-cost averaging on consistent basis.
Which is why when Grimes made that joke tweet about Crypto UBI my gears started turning. What if we tokenized worker cooperatives, except they were funded by your UBI tokens? What if 'governance' was all just social workers who were able to distribute mutual aid tokens when the automated governance / automated self-care strategies don't work out. 'Social liquidity pools' / social tokens for the marginalized who can't work but still want to get supported for their various creative output. I don't know if these are 'good' ideas or if they could ever be implemented. Perhaps I am engaging in an unreasonable amount of idealism to find any positives with crypto, but these are some topics I would like to explore. However, as a vulnerable person who doesn't get regular commissions. Doesn't have much of a real-life support network. I have a computer; I have a familiarity with crypto. These are the things I think about. I want to see an automated equitable distribution of wealth.
Sentiments like his above are often echoed, and understandably so. Which is why I want to raise the concern that both sides make it very difficult to talk positively about crypto in anything other than in a negative light. I want the Overton Window moved so I can discuss these elements without being treated like a 'cryptobro' or put on an NFT blocklist. I think this video has come the closest to getting enough people on the same page about the dangers of it, so I was a bit disappointed in some of these dismissals. Ultimately, I see this as a means to achieve some sort of
I had Bitcoin on Coinbase that I forgot about for years and then one day it turned into Bitcoin SV on the exchange. Back then I didn't think much of it. I expected the technology to be bad, it was new. It was the early 2010s. I was running bitcoin nodes locally; it was all very basic, unintuitive and unsafe. It wasn't like "hard fork" wasn't already in my lexicon at the time. Philosophically, in the early days people were very adamant about 'hard forks' being like a last resort against 51% attacks and security vulnerabilities that were inherent in new tech. Ethereum Classic is effectively as useless for the average person as bitcoin is (stores of wealth, remittance, laundering?) But that whole incident is what actually got me paying attention to crypto again because it was such a risky move in favor of consumer protection against fraud.
Not everything needs to be on chain, he showed some great examples of things that don't belong on-chain. Again, I feel like at this point most of my criticisms with these quotes are because we both agree on so much, but I was more inclined to think about think about it positively due to my biases of already being involved in that scene and convincing myself "I could make things better, provide appropriate use cases for this technology." On a personal level, I would be using "but I'm one of the good ones" arguments here as a kneejerk reaction, but like most things he is saying I think they are certainly 'fair' assessments irrespective of my disagreements. I want enough things to be present on chain that they are able to provide real world benefit. Crypto Oracle networks are a great example of this. I will often see arguments for things to be on chain only to be met with "why can't you do it elsewhere, just commission the artist." Chiming in with "well some of it is fungible actually" isn't very helpful but it is still true. I still think that's where the actual utility of web3 is, in providing more tangible benefit to human life instead of anything else. Some things would benefit from tokenization, having that ledger, being rewarded for burning, being rewarded for staking, etc. But for now, I haven't seen much that isn't a hyperbolic nightmare.
There was one other point of contention I had with this video: the section about cryptocurrency origins in the late 2000s. I was involved in the community back then and my first thought was "wait what, I don't remember any of it being that way." Nobody really cared about who made bitcoin, it was like "wait so i leave my computer on long enough this dude on reddit will send me a pizza?" The anonymous founder is pretty nebulous sounding admittedly, but with the big banking crash and all that and lack of premine it seemed like something worth exploring. While I have a lot of problems with crypto, they continually make strides in the consumer protection department that renews some confidence. I have never heard the stuff about the 'secret funding from 2006' that he mentions, I must have missed that part of the discourse.
Admittedly, I do have some bias on this topic: I don't 'invest' but I do have a decent workstation that I was gifted that I use to mine Ethereum when I'm not using my PC. I've mined enough to mint two tokens, but I've been putting most of what I get into coinbase's Eth2 contract in order to keep myself from wanting to spend it since I can't touch it until their Proof-of-Stake network goes live. This city uses hydroelectric, which I have been told makes all of what I am doing technically carbon-negative. Especially considering since I am only spending crypto that I have mined myself. I would benefit from a positive perception of crypto, so keep that in mind. Thank you.
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