Thread by @davetroy

1/I am a rigorous researcher of stuff I critique. This week I have been in Miami attending several events related to blockchain, crypto, art, and adjacent areas.

Amid a sea of scammers and scenesters, I met some very intelligent thoughtful people genuinely trying to innovate.

2/Most legit use case I have found so far: distributed storage. Tech like IPFS and Filecoin offer some promise for resilient storage. Maybe.

Cited projects include public archives and recording videos of holocaust survivors in a distributed way. Ok, I can see that.

3/That’s something of an extreme example that serves also to lend legitimacy and gravitas immediately and offer some cover. Also not clear one can guarantee survivability and integrity of such a use case, long term. Still, it’s worthy of discussion.

4/Using NFTs as a kind of membership or ticketing mechanism strikes me as another plausible use case, even as they are not yet normalized. That could take hold, though systems like Apple Wallet have much more traction at this stage and are roughly as useful.

5/Besides that, there are the various cryptocurrencies which suffer from a range of failings, and a lot of other stuff that will likely be a fad, and then a whole range of DRM schemes which may be end up having utility.

6/But by far, the biggest challenge in the space is the implicit adoption of libertarian ideology and Austrian School economics. Folks not aware of that and/or who want to fight against it need to be aware it’s baked into the code in many cases.

7/This was the model used to build Pinochet’s Chile. Look that up. It didn’t end well. Massive wealth concentration and a failed dictatorship, all because of policies supplied by Friedman, Mises, et al. I joke that now, people can be thrown out of helicopters via smart contract.

8/Serious adult conversations about our future demand face to face interaction and good-faith engagement. There’s a lot of time and talent being spent on stuff that won’t be around in 10 years. We should accelerate that and minimize waste. We have too much real urgent work to do.

And before some wiseacre weighs in, I’ve been into crypto/blockchain stuff since around 2013, and have gone to multiple events focused on it. I’m reporting here my *cumulative* findings over the last ~9 years. I’ve been more vocal lately because of the overlap with fascism.

This is an example of an array of displays that could be used to showcase NFT art. Interesting, I guess. But strikes me as just one more iteration of mixed media/digital art, not fundamentally different from what’s been possible.