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Awesome sensemaking for crypto/web3

Making sense of web3 & crypto. Introduction to key concepts and ideas. Rigorous, constructive analysis of key claims pro and con. A look at the deeper hopes and aspirations.

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Critique >General

The problem with NFTs

2022-01-21 - by Dan Olson (Documentary) 📺 [👉 Highly recommended 👈]

Three things Web3 should fix in 2022

a response to The Problem with NFTs - 28 Jan 2022

The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger

November 24, 2021

The Intellectual Incoherence of Cryptoassets

November 7, 2021

The Non-Innovation of Cryptocurrency

July 7, 2021

The Political Case for a Blanket Cryptocurrency Ban

March 30, 2021

Gamestop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

February 3, 2021

Today on Sick Sad World: How The Cryptobros Have Fallen

2022-01-04 by Jamie Zawinski (legendary coder, co-founder of Mozilla etc.)

Web3 First Impressions

2022-01-07 Moxie Marlinspike, co-founder of Signal etc.

Bitcoin, Currencies, and Fragility by Nassim Taleb - 27 Jun 2021

highly critical paper by author Black Swan etc.

https://watershed.co.uk/studio/news/2021/12/03/case-against-crypto

The European Money and Finance Forum - The encrypted threat: Bitcoin’s social cost and regulatory responses

Jan 2022. A comprehensive study by SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum that details the net negative effects of bitcoin to society.

The Third Web

2021-12-17 - long critical essay including detailed history by Tante

https://rufuspollock.com/2016/07/02/reflections-on-the-blockchain/

2016-07-02 - by Rufus Pollock (mainly a critique of early DAOs and techno-solutionism)

Web3 takes trust, too

2022-01-10 by Matt Levine on Bloomberg.com

Revolution Now! With Peter Joseph | Bitcoin and Financialization

May 21, 2021

The Web3 Fraud

2021-12-16 by Nicholas Weaver on usenix.com

Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

Abuse and harassment on the blockchain

Anonymous cryptocurrency wallets are not so simple

Cryptocurrency off-ramps, and the pressure towards centralization

Cryptocurrency’s Robinhood effect

Abuse on the blockchain – Guest lecture at Stanford University

Against Web3 and Faux-Decentralization

2021-10-19 by Soatok

The technological case against Bitcoin and blockchain

2022-03-05 by Luke Plant

The Case Against Bitcoin

2021-05-14 by Michael W. Green. A portfolio manager discusses the case against bitcoin from a financial and geopolitical perspective.

The Register: The dark equation of harm versus good means blockchain’s had its day

2021-12-06

Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies: Burn It With Fire

2018-04-20 by Nicholas Weaver 📺 Nicholas Weaver is a staff researcher with the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and lecturer in EECS, where he teaches machine structures and computer security. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley in 2003 and joined ICSI to study…

Ross Anderson et al: Bitcoin Redux: crypto crime, and how to tackle it

(full paper)- 2018-06-01 - Anderson is a Professor of Security Engineering at the University Cambridge. Bitcoin Redux explains what’s going wrong in the world of cryptocurrencies. The bitcoin exchanges are developing into a shadow banking system, which do not give their customers actual bitcoin…

Ross Anderson: Why Bitcoin is Not Cash

2018-04-10 - 📺 walks through why bitcoin is not cash and the complex legal questions it would need to deal with if it wanted to be.

Ross Anderson: Tracing Stolen Bitcoin

2018-03-23 - 📺

Simon Wardley: A Spoiler for the Future of Bitcoin

2013-11-27 - "As you can guess, I'm not a fan of bitcoin. If left unchecked then I find it has the potential to undermine the importance of Government which is actually not good for competition and not good for the market. I hope none of the above happens and would rather see bitcoin disappear in…

Kai Stinchcombe: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

2017-12-23 - "Each purported use case — from payments to legal documents, from escrow to voting systems—amounts to a set of contortions to add a distributed, encrypted, anonymous ledger where none was needed. What if there isn’t actually any use for a distributed ledger at all? What if, ten years…

Kai Stinchcombe: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future

2018-05-04 - "Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future. Its failure to achieve adoption to date is because systems built on trust, norms, and institutions inherently function better than the type of no-need-for-trusted-parties systems blockchain envisions. That’s…

Cory Doctorow: When crypto-exchanges go broke, you'll lose it all

2022-02-03. Why state backed money is a good thing (a feature not a bug).

Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3

2021-12-13

"Get ready for the crash"

CBS Money Watch - 2022-02-09

Crypto and NFTs are "Pretty Serious Speculative Bubble"

2022-02-10

David Rosenthal: Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?

2022-02-09. Having built a decentralized consensus system using Proof-of-Work (http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/945445.945451) the author has the technical knowledge to explain the design faults and limitations of permissionless blockchain systems, as well as highlighting the economic and environmental…

Economies of Scale in Peer-to-Peer Networks

2014-10-07. Network effects lead to centralization in p2p (e.g. Bitcoin) and no good way to mitigate this.

Charlie Stross: Why I want Bitcoin to Die in Fire

2013-12

The Maltese Falcon

critique of bitcoin and financial properties of crypto assets from the CIO of JP Morgan bank. 2021-02-10

Vivaldi CEO: Why Vivaldi will never create ThinkCoin

2022-01-13 - Jon von Tetzchner: “if you look beyond the hype, you’ll find nothing more than a pyramid scheme posing as currency.”

Centralizing Control: Why Bitcoin is Dangerous

2022-04-02 - Sal Bayat: “Democratic governance is fundamentally incompatible with existing cryptocurrency systems as they can only represent the interests of those in control of the system.”

Critique >Economists

Vice: ‘Crypto Ruined My Life’: The Mental Health Crisis Hitting Bitcoin Investors

2022-02-16 - The stress and anxiety that goes with funneling your life savings into a volatile market is no joke.

Ed Zitron: Solutions That Create Problems

2022-02-22 - The thing about Web3 is that it is uniquely useless. I have actively searched for an explanation as to why it's the future, what products it would allow us to build, what sort of good it would provide, and I cannot even at my most optimistic find a real use case

Critique >Ponzi aspect

Financial Times: Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme

2021-12-22. A Ponzi scheme is a zero-sum enterprise. But bitcoin is a negative-sum phenomenon that you can’t even pursue a claim against, argues Robert McCauley. Original

Seattle Times: Bitcoin is basically a Ponzi scheme

2018-01-30

Bitcoin is a Ponzi

2020-12-13 by Prof Jorge Stolfi

Financial Times: Albanian lessons for regulators nervously eyeing the crypto world

2021-07-05 - Albania’s 1990s pyramid scheme debacle highlights risks of regulatory paralysis on the cryptocurrency explosion

Jacobin: Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme

2022-01-21

Critique >Crypto and energy consumption

Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

Why Bitcoin Is Bad For The Environment

2021-04-22

Energy power usage CryptoArt, ETH, Blockchain spreadsheet

How Do We Solve Bitcoin's Energy Problem?

2022-01-30

Critique >Scams/frauds

People Building ‘Blockchain City’ in Wyoming Scammed by Hackers - Vice

2022-01-12 - On Monday, CityDAO—the group that bought 40 acres of Wyoming in hopes of "building a city on the Ethereum blockchain”—announced that its Discord server was hacked and members' funds were successfully stolen as a result.

Web3 is going just great

A timeline of scams related to cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and web3 projects since the beginning of 2021 by Molly White

Critique >DAOs

Is The DAO going to be DOA?

2016-05-16 - by Dan Larimer (founder of BitShares and much else). Larimer sets out most of the basic critiques of DAOs as governance innovation extremely well:

DAOs and the nature of human collaboration

2021-08-12 by Marin Petrov. A critique of DAOs and technosolutionism.

Critique >NFTs

OpenSea, Web3, and Aggregation Theory

2022-01-05 - Ben Thompson of Stratechery

Brian Eno on NFTs & Automaticism

Detailed twitter thread by @NFTEthics alleging fraudulent or close to fraudulent behaviour by a major NTF influencer…

2022-01-17 ([cached](./assets/Thread by @NFTethics re beaniemaxi.pdf))

Jacobin: NFTs Are, Quite Simply, Bullshit

2022-01-26

Critique >Humour

Crypto Curious

South Park on NFTs - 2021-12-21

N-FT: Non-Functioning Tower

NFT satire - 2022-03-07

“a normal person explains cryptocurrency”

by Avalon Penrose - 2021-12-22

“my crypto friend calls me every day and this is what he sound like”

by Flula - 2021-02-22

The Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Scam

Ordinary Things - 2020-05-31 - “What is Bitcoin? Is Bitcoin a scam? And how did Bitcoin become what it is today? Who was the Dread Pirate Roberts and what happened to the Silk Road?”

Cryptocurrencies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

2018-03-12

Don’t Understand Bitcoin? This Man Will Mumble An Explanation At You

by ClickHole - 2015-07-7

If Cryptocurrency was Honest

If NFTs were Honest

Brave New Web

ani utopian Web3 satire by Nikolay Vlasov - 2022-04-10

Critique >Twitter users

https://twitter.com/web3isgreat

https://twitter.com/ncweaver

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF

https://twitter.com/smdiehl

Crypto Criticism Threads

https://twitter.com/rufuspollock

https://twitter.com/troll_lock

https://twitter.com/CasPiancey

"Under promise, under deliver" co-host @cryptocriticpod opinions are mine, not my employer odds and ends @protos hold no crypto or crypto stonks

https://twitter.com/BennettTomlin

I do data science and track down frauds | 74% backed | Co-host @CryptoCriticPod | Writing @fud_letter | Discord: https://discord.gg/YpAUqNkhSC

https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob

(staff writer New Republic) & https://twitter.com/ben_mckenzie - "apparently I now write about crypto"

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Critique >Tether, and other stablecoins

Bennett Tomlin: Tether and Bitfinex Introduction

2021-08-10 - Tether and Bitfinex are two of the most important companies in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Tether is the largest stablecoin, and the primary driver of volume and liquidity. Bitfinex used to be the largest cryptocurrency exchange, and still is a frequently used exchange. Tether and…;…

Tether Papers: This is exactly who acquired 70% of all USDT ever issued

2021-11-10

Bloomberg: Tether’s Latest Black Eye Is CFTC Fine for Lying About Reserves

2021-10-15 - Biggest stablecoin issuer hit with $41 million penalty. Affiliated crypto exchange Bitfinex also fined $1.5 million.

Bloomberg: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

2021-10-07 - A wild search for the U.S. dollars supposedly backing the stablecoin at the center of the global cryptocurrency trade—and in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators and prosecutors. [paywalled] (cached)

Bloomberg: Tether Fails to Dispel Mystery on Stablecoin’s Crucial Reserves

2021-12-03 - Holding include $30.6 billion in commercial paper and CDs. About $1 billion moved from reverse repo notes to money funds

Critique >Central Bank Digital Currencies

Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation

provides a high level overview of the current state of central bank and private sector currencies in the US, and identifies risks and challenges with the implementation of a central bank digital currency. From the paper summary: "The paper summarizes the current state of the domestic payments…

Critique >Trading/Market Microstructure/Security Risks

Quantifying Blockchain Extractable Value: How dark is the forest?

Qin et al., 2021. Technical paper characterizing and quantifying miner extracted value on Ethereum's DeFi smart contracts.

High-Frequency Trading on Decentralized On-Chain Exchanges

Zhou et al., 2020. Technical paper detailing the "front-running" that occurs on Ethereum.

An Anatomy of Bitcoin Price Manipulation

Matt Ranger, 2022. Speculative analysis of centralized cryptocurrency exchange market data to support a price manipulation hypothesis.

Critique >Former bitcoin enthusiasts turned skeptics

Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely.

by Angelino Desmet - 12-03-2021

I wish I never bought bitcoin.

by Angelino Desmet - 01-06-2020

Critique >Religious skeptical angles

Sujato Bhikkhu on Crypto

by Sujato Bhikkhu. A monk explains why crypto is incompatible with the teachings of the Buddha from both moral and spiritual dimensions.

The Christian case against Bitcoin and blockchain

by Luke Plant, A reading of bitcoin philosophy and cult like phenomenon from a biblical perspective 2021-03-2022.

What you should know about Bitcoin

by Joe Carter. A well-researched, accurate introduction to Bitcoin from a Christian perspective, 2017-12-27.

Ask the Economist: Should a Christian Invest in Bitcoin?

by Greg Phelan, 2021-10-27.

What is blockchain, web3, etc.

On Blockchain and Trust

February 12, 2019 by Bruce Schneier. The article also appeared on wired.com as There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology.

The Myth of Decentralization and Lies about Web 2.0

2022-01-07 by Emily Gorcenski

http://kernel.community

A custom web3 educational community with free learning resources at https://kernel.community/en/learn/

Iron-manning the pro arguments >Bitcoin

Bitcoin for the Open-Minded Skeptic

May 2020 - by [[people/Matt Huang]]. Note: more an argument for why Bitcoin will "make it" than any argument why that is socially valuable (or not).

7 Things To Read About Bitcoin (For Institutional Investors)

May 2020 - by [[people/Matt Huang]]

Iron-manning the pro arguments >General

JumpCrypto Crypto Reading List (on Github)

Iron-manning the pro arguments >Web3

Sean Bonner: Why Web3

2021-10-26 - by Sean Bonner. "Web3 upends the power structures we’ve grown accustomed to and puts artists and creators back into the drivers seat…Web3 offers a future where people are in charge of their own identities, not beholden to the whims of data hoarding corporations. People control their…

Iron-manning the pro arguments >Fat protocols

From

Crypto Tokens and the Coming Age of Protocol Innovation

2016-07-28 - by Albert Wenger at USV. Move about incentivizing investment in the protocols

Iron-manning the pro arguments >Fairer governance

If I Only had a Heart: a DisCO Manifesto

Dec 2019 - A joint publication by DisCO.coop, the Transnational Institute and Guerrilla Media Collective. "Value Sovereignty, Care Work, Commons and Distributed Cooperative Organizations. The DisCO Manifesto is a deep dive into the world of Distributed Cooperative Organizations. Over its 80…

Wired: The Father of Web3 Wants You to Trust Less

2021-11-29 - Gavin Wood, who coined the term Web3 in 2014, believes decentralized technologies are the only hope of preserving liberal democracy.

Iron-manning the pro arguments >Fairer Economy

Li Jin on the future of the creator economy

Shared ownership and control of online platforms is the way forward (via crypto)

Note: we probably all want that wonderful outcome it's just that crypto is neither necessary nor likely to get us…

Reference

Manias, Panics, and. Crashes. A History of Financial Crises

by by CP Kindleberger (1978)

Inbox

https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/web3-a-map-in-search-of-territory/

Jan 2022 - by Evgeny Morozov

Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake, and the Stablecoin Centralization Problem

good overview of PoW vs PoS and the complexity/problems PoS adds. Second half of the article expounds on how "any smart contract blockchain that relies heavily on DeFi for its use case, can have the outcome of its hard forks significantly determined by centralized stablecoin custodians." Long…