We need more acknowledgement of the jokers in crypto
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as smart on crypto as I should be. But I often wonder if a big part of that isn’t my natural revulsion to charlatans. And the fact that clearly — clearly — a huge percentage of the people involved in the crypto community are hucksters, grifters, con artists — use whatever word you wish. You know what I mean.
Obviously, this is not fair. There are both people doing very cool stuff with crypto and there are obviously true believers. But I actually think that’s also part of the problem. Those people are not nearly vocal enough about the bad actors ruining their reputation with us n00bs.
Said another way: what’s the point in getting excited about crypto when any toe dip into the world is more likely than not going to lead to an encourter with a get-rich-quick artist at best, and a full-on fraudster at worst?
There will be immediate push back here to say that any industry with the potential to create vast new sums of wealth, quickly, will pull in the jokers. This was true in the gold rush. This was true in the dot com boom. It’s true now. And that is true, of course. The issue, as I see it, is that this is all happening at a scale which is truly unprecedented. The gold rush was limited by geography. The dot com boom was at least somewhat limited by the public markets. This is everywhere. Available to everyone.
That is, of course, also the inherent power of crypto. The gatekeepers are no more. But sometimes, just sometimes, those very gatekeepers serve a purpose. Even if it’s to act as an unnatural stop gap. This should be terrifying to some people who aren’t savvy enough to know what they don’t know. And, if I’m being honest, I do worry that this at some point ends badly for a large swath of people. Maybe and perhaps even probably, that’s just a bump in the road. But the point remains: those in the actual know aren’t doing enough to say ‘no’ to those who should know better.
And, at the very least, they aren’t being vocal enough about the very real and very obvious frauds given crypto a bad name. I’m honestly not quite sure why other than perhaps the desire not to give any voice to those types, or perhaps the fear that any sort of pushback against the free market here is antithetical to the ethos of crypto. Fuck that. Just call a spade a spade and call out the bad actors with as much fervor as you tout the next great blockchain innovation.
The world needs this. Specifically, your world needs this.
Published on September 3, 2021 📆Written from Half Moon Bay, California 🌜Written on a 2021 11-inch M1 iPad Pro ⌨Drinking a glass of red, red WHINE 🍷
