#crypto
Ben McKenzie recently appeared on Bill Maher to promote his new book and takedown crypto. I’m down to debate technology, but this was one of the most intellectually shallow segments on any topic in recent memory. In the highlights of this post, I’m going to respond to some of the specific points McKenzie raised.
Crypto in practice is unfortunately pretty vulnerable compared to the principles that undergird it. For example, many smart contracts depend on third-party data feeds to execute. Can these centralised oracles be trusted, though?
Interesting discussion about cryptocurrency adoption in Argentina:
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash coined the term metaverse. Now, with his Lamina1 blockchain technology startup, he’s hoping to challenge the likes of Meta by building the open metaverse.
Big companies are sick of missing or being late to technology paradigm shifts. Instead, they’re jumping on every bandwagon before they’re ready. I think this could actually kill things like the metaverse before they start — the corporate shilling doesn’t do a lot for the initial adoption of these platforms.
This forum post is apparently the first time proof of state was proposed for a blockchain. A nice piece of internet history, especially given the recent Ethereum merge. I love how humble the suggestion is, given how significant it became.
Thanks to artists like Beeple and projects like CryptoPunks, NFTs have been the main character of crypto news in 2021. This has led to an avalanche of NFT sales by artists and celebrities all over the world. Despite the heavy focus on people with clout cashing in on their social capital, I think NFTs will have an even bigger impact on artists emerging today.
The world of work is rapidly migrating from physical space to the internet and this newly dominant medium for work is going to significantly change how we structure society. This may sound dramatic, but it is inevitable that industrial-revolution era systems, legislations and structures will eventually be superseded. I think, in the crypto community, we’re already seeing the structures of the future emerge.
Braintrust is a crypto-powered freelancing network, like 99designs, Airtasker or Fiverr. Crypto hype has led to some pretty hilarious ideas for things we should tokenise, but I think this is actually a great idea. The reason this makes sense to me is that it tokenises real economic activity rather than attempts to arbitrarily put something on chain. This idea has legitimate potential to turn into a thriving, user-owned talent marketplace and is exactly the type of problem crypto can help us to solve.