Thread by @profcarroll

So if crypto achieves its intrinsic objective of obsoleting democratic sovereign states and their antiquated trappings of central banks and judiciaries what’s the actual mechanism that deters fraud as a business model à la Theranos?

Reply guys saying but the blockchain is “transparent” isn’t that the whole idea! then tell me about all the recent fraudulent NFT ape transactions that require arcane knowledge to even begin to comprehend let alone conjure any possible remedies for blatant theft

So far the answer is a web2 centralization on top of web3 chaining but we haven’t seen a proof of concept for a fully decentralized platform governance UX because it’s so much more difficult than convincing folks to speculate their excess covid cash on the next big thing

Crypto is one big nasty conflict of interest precisely because it seeks to transact every available human moment. It radicalizes because you can either be invested and evangelical or otherwise. One’s ability to be merely cryptocurious is tenuous at best; sunk cost is substantial.

There are crypto-academics now. I think the academy has not addressed the weird disclosure ethics with their research and cultural production. There is maybe one established crypto-critical academic (hi @dgolumbia who am I missing?)