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.
# Awesome critique of crypto/web3

Awesome critique of crypto/web3, etc. Contributions are welcome.

## Critique

### General

* [The problem with NFTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g) - 2022-01-21 - by Dan Olson (Documentary) 📺 [👉 Highly recommended 👈]
  * [Three things Web3 should fix in 2022](https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/28/22906010/web3-nft-internet-history-video-platformer) a response to The Problem with NFTs - 28 Jan 2022
* Stephen Diehl series - https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog.html
  * [The Case Against Crypto](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/against-crypto.html) - December 31, 2021
  - [Blockchainism](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/blockchainism.html) - December 11, 2021
  - [Web3 is Bullshit](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/web3-bullshit.html) - December 4, 2021
  - [The Internet's Casino Boats](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/casino-boats.html) - December 1, 2021
  - [The Token Disconnect](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/disconnect.html) - November 27, 2021
  - [The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html) - November 24, 2021
  - [Ice-Nine for Markets](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/ice-nine.html) - November 23, 2021
  - [The Tinkerbell Griftopia](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/tinkerbell.html) - November 19, 2021
  - [Decentralized Woo Hoo](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/decentralized-woo.html) - November 16, 2021
  - [The Intellectual Incoherence of Cryptoassets](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html) - November 7, 2021
  - [On Unintentional Scams](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-scams.html) - July 23, 2021
  - [How to Destroy Bitcoin](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/destroy-bitcoin.html) - July 13, 2021
  - [The Non-Innovation of Cryptocurrency](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/non-innovation.html) - July 7, 2021
  - [The Oncoming Ransomware Storm](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/ransomware.html) - May 11, 2021
  - [Et tu, Signal?](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html) - April 7, 2021
  - [The Political Case for a Blanket Cryptocurrency Ban](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/banbitcoin.html) - March 30, 2021
  - [Bitcoin: The Postmodern Ponzi](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/ponzi.html) - February 27, 2021
  - [The Crypto Chernobyl](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/chernobyl.html) - February 10, 2021
  - [Gamestop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage](https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/gamestop.html) - February 3, 2021
* [Today on Sick Sad World: How The Cryptobros Have Fallen](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/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](https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html) - 2022-01-07 Moxie Marlinspike, co-founder of Signal etc.
* [Bitcoin, Currencies, and Fragility by Nassim Taleb - 27 Jun 2021](https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.14204) - 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](https://web.archive.org/web/20220107084533/https://www.suerf.org/docx/f_88b3febc5798a734026c82c1012408f5_38771_suerf.pdf) - 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](https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/) - 2021-12-17 - long critical essay including detailed history by [Tante](https://twitter.com/tante)
* [Tante's Web3/NFT FAQ](https://tante.cc/2022/02/09/tantes-blockchain-web3-faq/)
* 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](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-01-10/web3-takes-trust-too) - 2022-01-10 by Matt Levine on Bloomberg.com
* [Revolution Now! With Peter Joseph | Bitcoin and Financialization](https://youtu.be/bsghxd1cdeA) - May 21, 2021
* [The Web3 Fraud](https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/web3-fraud) - 2021-12-16 by Nicholas Weaver on usenix.com
* Molly White series - https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/
  * [Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are](https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-say/)
  * [It's not still the early days](https://blog.mollywhite.net/its-not-still-the-early-days/)
  * [Abuse and harassment on the blockchain](https://blog.mollywhite.net/abuse-and-harassment-on-the-blockchain/)
  * [Anonymous cryptocurrency wallets are not so simple](https://blog.mollywhite.net/anonymous-crypto-wallets/)
  * [Cryptocurrency off-ramps, and the pressure towards centralization](https://blog.mollywhite.net/off-ramps/)
  * [Cryptocurrency’s Robinhood effect](https://blog.mollywhite.net/cryptocurrencys-robinhood-effect/)
  * [Abuse on the blockchain – Guest lecture at Stanford University](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBZ-BXfCSY)
* [Against Web3 and Faux-Decentralization](https://soatok.blog/2021/10/19/against-web3-and-faux-decentralization/) - 2021-10-19 by Soatok
* [The technological case against Bitcoin and blockchain](https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/) - 2022-03-05 by Luke Plant
* [The Case Against Crypto](https://www.watershed.co.uk/studio/news/2021/12/03/case-against-crypto) - 2021-12-03 by Martin O'Leary
* [The Case Against Bitcoin](https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-case-against-bitcoin?s=r) - 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](https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/06/the_dark_equation_of_harm/) - 2021-12-06
* [Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies: Burn It With Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHab0dNnj4) - 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 network security and measurement. "The entire cryptocurrency and blockchain ecology is rife with frauds, criminalities, and tulip-mania style hype and needs to be properly disposed of into the ashes of history. A “blockchain” is just a horribly inefficient append-only file which costs a literal fortune to secure without actually providing meaningful distributed trust, while cryptocurrencies are provably inferior than actual currencies for legal real world transactions. Beyond the sheer uselessness have emerged a whole host of bad ideas, ranging from the “put a bird^H^H^H^H blockchain on it” hype to unregistered (and mostly fraudulent) securities with “Initial Coin Offerings” to an invitation for massive theft in the form of “smart” contracts."
* [Ross Anderson et al: Bitcoin Redux: crypto crime, and how to tackle it](https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2018/06/01/bitcoin-redux-crypto-crime-and-how-to-tackle-it/) ([full paper](https://weis2018.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/05/WEIS_2018_paper_38.pdf))- 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 but rather display a "balance" and allow them to transact with others. However if Alice sends Bob a bitcoin, and they’re both customers of the same exchange, it just adjusts their balances rather than doing anything on the blockchain. This is an e-money service, according to European law, but is the law enforced? Not where it matters. We’ve been looking at the details.
  * [Ross Anderson: Why Bitcoin is Not Cash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9HH_dFcoLc) - 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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlLN0QERWBs) - 2018-03-23 - 📺
* [Simon Wardley: A Spoiler for the Future of Bitcoin](https://blog.gardeviance.org/2013/11/a-spoiler-for-future-bitcoin.html) - 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 a puff of history." (NB: he predicts massive appreciation in bitcoin and is concerned how it can undermine government and tax revenue.)
* Kai Stinchcombe series that discusses whether blockchain can solve various real world use-cases better than traditional technologies
  - [Kai Stinchcombe: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain](https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100) - 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 after it was invented, the reason nobody has adopted a distributed ledger at scale is because nobody wants it?"
  - [Kai Stinchcombe: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future](https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustless-crypto-paradise-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec) - 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 permanent: no matter how much blockchain improves it is still headed in the wrong direction."
* [Cory Doctorow: When crypto-exchanges go broke, you'll lose it all](https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/03/liquidation-preference/#we-live-in-a-society) - 2022-02-03. Why state backed money is a good thing (a feature not a bug).
  > If you've spent much time around cryptocurrency people, you've probably heard a rant or two about "sound money" and the need to "depoliticize money." This is a foundation of blockchainism: the belief that money is born separate from states, and states invade on the private realm when they "meddle" in the money system.
  >
  > There are at least two serious problems with this ideology. First, it's plain wrong on the historical facts. Money did not emerge from barter systems among people. Money was and is a product of state.
  >
  > But even if you stipulate that money didn't originate among private markets there's another serious historical problem with "sound money." ... It's this: central banks didn't emerge to usurp the private sector's control over money. Central banks were created because without them, finance was subject to wild, terrifying, ruinous boom/bust cycles. What's more, without a central bank, money was subject to naked political meddling, which central banks (sometimes) moderated.
* Internet pioneer/Silicon Valley legend Tim O'Reilly on Web3:
  - [Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3](https://www.oreilly.com/radar/why-its-too-early-to-get-excited-about-web3/) - 2021-12-13
  - ["Get ready for the crash"](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cryptocurrency-nft-blockchain-web3-tim-oreilly/) - CBS Money Watch - 2022-02-09
  - [Crypto and NFTs are "Pretty Serious Speculative Bubble"](https://decrypt.co/92676/internet-guru-tim-oreilly-crypto-nfts-serious-speculative-bubble) - 2022-02-10
* [David Rosenthal: Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?](https://blog.dshr.org/2022/02/ee380-talk.html) - 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 issues. Summary of critique:
  > * That the externalities I describe don't exist. You'll have a hard time proving that the waste of electricity and hardware, and the crime wave, are imaginary.
  > * That although the externalities do exist, the benefits of decentralization outweigh them. The problem here is that since the systems are not actually decentralized, we get the externalities but don't get the benefits.
  > * That although the externalities do exist, and the systems aren't dencentralized, they're making so much money that we shouldn't worry. The problem here is that the amount of actual money you can get out of a cryptocurrency equals the amount of actual money that has been put in, minus the actual costs of mining. So the big picture is that although there may be winners, in aggregate the system loses money.
  * [Economies of Scale in Peer-to-Peer Networks](https://blog.dshr.org/2014/10/economies-of-scale-in-peer-to-peer.html) - 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](https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html) - 2013-12
* [The Maltese Falcon](https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/global/pb/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/the-maltese-falcoin.pdf) - 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](https://vivaldi.com/blog/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](https://salbayat.org/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.”

### Economists

* Stephanie Kelton [Cryptocurrency and Fiat Money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84wTEf9Acik) - 2017-12-23
* Richard Thaler [Economics Nobel prize winner, Richard Thaler: “The market that looks most like a bubble to me is Bitcoin and its brethren”](https://econews.pt/2018/01/22/economics-nobel-prize-winner-richard-thaler-the-market-that-looks-most-like-a-bubble-to-me-is-bitcoin-and-its-brethren/) - 2018-01-22
* Various ['Only good for drug dealers': More Nobel prize winners snub bitcoin](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/good-drug-dealers-nobel-prize-winners-snub-bitcoin-184903784.html?ref=hackernoon.com) - 2018-04-27
* Robert Shiller [The Old Allure of New Money](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/cryptocurrencies-scientific-narrative-by-robert-j--shiller-2018-05?barrier=accesspay) - 2018-05-21
* Abhijit Banerjee [Nobel Prize Winning Economist Abhijit Banerjee: Is Blockchain the Key to Financial Inclusion?](https://blockchain.news/news/nobel-prize-winning-economist-abhijit-banerjee-is-blockchain-the-key-to-financial-inclusion) - 2020-01-20
* Steve Keen [Cryptocurrencies, Debt, and the Economy: Steve Keen interviewed by Layne Hartsell](http://www.koreaittimes.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=103792) - 2021-02-17
* Amartya Sen [Prannoy Roy's Townhall With Amartya Sen On Economy, Farm Laws: Full Transcript ](https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/prannoy-roys-townhall-with-amartya-sen-on-indian-economy-farm-laws-full-transcript-2385071) - 2021-03-06
* Jeffrey Sachs [Famed economist Jeffrey Sachs rails against Bitcoin: Highly polluting and ‘almost like counterfeiting’](https://fortune.com/2021/03/16/bitcoin-jeffrey-sachs-critiques-btc/) - 2021-03-16
* Paul Krugman [Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin](https://nytimes.com/2021/05/20/opinion/cryptocurrency-bitcoin.html) - 2021-05-20
* Tyler Cowen [What the Crypto Crowd Doesn't Understand About Economics](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-21/what-the-crypto-crowd-doesn-t-understand-about-economics) - 2021-06-20
* Yanis Varoufakis [What is money, really? And why Bitcoin is not the answer (even if blockchain is brilliant & potentially helpful in democratising money)](https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2021/08/02/what-is-money/)  - 2021-08-02
* Daron Acemoğlu [The Bitcoin Fountainhead](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bitcoin-an-appealing-distraction-by-daron-acemoglu-2021-10?barrier=accesspay) - 2021-10-05
* Joseph Stiglitz [Nobel Prize Economist Joseph Stiglitz Calls Regulators to Ban Cryptocurrencies](https://deep-resonance.org/2021/10/28/nobel-prize-economist-joseph-stiglitz-calls-regulators-to-ban-cryptocurrencies/) - 2021-10-28
* Richard Thaler [Economics Nobel prize winner, Richard Thaler: “The market that looks most like a bubble to me is Bitcoin and its brethren”](https://econews.pt/2018/01/22/economics-nobel-prize-winner-richard-thaler-the-market-that-looks-most-like-a-bubble-to-me-is-bitcoin-and-its-brethren/) - 2018-01-22
* Yanis Varoufakis [Yanis Varoufakis on Crypto & the Left, and Techno-Feudalism](https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/yanis-varoufakis-on-techno-feudalism/) - 2022-01-26
* Tyler Cowen [The Crypto Crash Strengthens the Case for Crypto](https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/crypto-crash-strengthens-case-for-crypto-s-long-term-future) - 2022-01-27
* Jesse Frederik [Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing](https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing/84495599980-95473476) - 2020-08-21 - "Blockchain technology is going to change everything: the shipping industry, the financial system, government … in fact, what won’t it change? But enthusiasm for it mainly stems from a lack of knowledge and understanding. The blockchain is a solution in search of a problem."
* [Vice: ‘Crypto Ruined My Life’: The Mental Health Crisis Hitting Bitcoin Investors](https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvn8z/crypto-bad-for-mental-health) - 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](https://ez.substack.com/p/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](https://twitter.com/edzitron/status/1495891031979704321)

### Ponzi aspect

* [Financial Times: Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme](https://web.archive.org/web/20220113183816/https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoReality/comments/rm78e3/financial_times_why_bitcoin_is_worse_than_a/) - 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](https://ft.com/content/83a14261-598d-4601-87fc-5dde528b33d0)
* [Seattle Times: Bitcoin is basically a Ponzi scheme](https://seattletimes.com/opinion/bitcoin-is-basically-a-ponzi-scheme/) - 2018-01-30
* [Bitcoin is a Ponzi](https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-ponzi.html) - 2020-12-13 by Prof Jorge Stolfi
* [Financial Times: Albanian lessons for regulators nervously eyeing the crypto world](https://www.ft.com/content/810367e5-e0b1-4221-b303-f3012a177437) - 2021-07-05 - Albania’s 1990s pyramid scheme debacle highlights risks of regulatory paralysis on the cryptocurrency explosion
  > Once upon a time in Albania, a scrappy, alternative finance industry emerged to take on and eventually supplant a sclerotic, technologically-backward banking system. The lessons from its dramatic collapse remain relevant today. 
  >
  > Essentially, what was initially touted as a post-communist entrepreneurial success story proved to be pyramid schemes of breathtaking proportions. Slick marketing and lofty promises turned an informal, decentralised, crime-facilitating ecosystem into a mainstream mania that sucked in multitudes of people, unchecked by feeble and fitful regulatory warnings.
* [Jacobin: Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme](https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-bitcoin-economy-decentralization) - 2022-01-21

### Crypto and energy consumption

* [Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)
* [Why Bitcoin Is Bad For The Environment](https://newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-bitcoin-is-bad-for-the-environment) - 2021-04-22
* [Energy power usage CryptoArt, ETH, Blockchain spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hzzxMbytOZ1mYl9kLh_SvM6kne6JI_mdCfHIoNapr5M/edit#gid=0)
* [How Do We Solve Bitcoin's Energy Problem?](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/30/how-do-we-solve-bitcoins-carbon-problem) - 2022-01-30

### Scams/frauds

* [People Building ‘Blockchain City’ in Wyoming Scammed by Hackers - Vice](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7w3am/people-building-blockchain-city-in-wyoming-scammed-by-hackers) - 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](https://web3isgoinggreat.com/) - A timeline of scams related to cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and web3 projects since the beginning of 2021 by Molly White

### DAOs

* [Is The DAO going to be DOA?](https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@dan/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:
  > Fancy technology can obscure our assessment of what is really going on. The DAO solves a single problem: the corrupt trustee or administrator. It replaces voluntary compliance with a corporation’s charter under threat of lawsuit, with automated compliance with software defined rules. This subtle change may be enough to bypass regulatory hurdles facing traditional trustee’s and administrators, but it doesn’t solve most of the problems the regulations were attempting to address.
  >
  > What The DAO doesn’t solve is all of the other problems inherent with any joint venture. These are people problems, economic problems, and political problems. In some sense, The DAO creates many new problems caused by its ridged rules and expensive machine-enforced process for change.
  >
  > The DAO doesn’t solve the “group trap” where by losers subsidize winners. It disempowers the individual actor and forces him to submit to group decision making. It doesn’t make raising money cheaper for companies, it just adds blockchain-enforced bureaucratic and political processes.
* [DAOs and the nature of human collaboration](https://world.hey.com/marin/daos-and-the-nature-of-human-collaboration-be162918) - 2021-08-12 by Marin Petrov. A critique of DAOs and technosolutionism.

### NFTs

Non-fungible tokens.

* [OpenSea, Web3, and Aggregation Theory](https://stratechery.com/2022/opensea-raises-money-bans-nfts-openseas-value-cryptos-aggregators/) - 2022-01-05 - Ben Thompson of Stratechery
* [Brian Eno on NFTs & Automaticism](https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/brian-eno-on-nfts-and-automatism/)
* [Detailed twitter thread by @NFTEthics alleging fraudulent or close to fraudulent behaviour by a major NTF influencer named BeanieMaxi ](https://twitter.com/NFTethics/status/1483051289022017538) - 2022-01-17 ([cached](./assets/Thread by @NFTethics re beaniemaxi.pdf))
* [Jacobin: NFTs Are, Quite Simply, Bullshit](https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/nfts-fallon-paris-hilton-bored-ape-digital-imagery-commodification) - 2022-01-26

### Specific use cases

* Event ticketing: [NFT tickets — a realistic look at a big trend](https://medium.com/@ticketpark/nft-tickets-a-realistic-look-at-a-big-trend-ae813d6f885d) – 2021-12-14
* NFT games: [“Play-to-earn” and Bullshit Jobs](https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/) - December 28, 2021 by Paul Butler - An interesting reflexion linking web3's "Play-to-earn" concept to David Graeber's [Bullshit Jobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs)
* NFT games: [Crypto Games: Report from hell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHz0xpU5Tu8) - Good video reviewing and discussing crypto games

### Humour

* [Crypto Curious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8f-BQFo7lw) - South Park on NFTs - 2021-12-21
* [N-FT: Non-Functioning Tower](https://www.nonfunctioningtower.com) - NFT satire - 2022-03-07
* [“a normal person explains cryptocurrency”](https://twitter.com/avalonpenrose/status/1473753174787772418) by Avalon Penrose - 2021-12-22
* [“my crypto friend calls me every day and this is what he sound like”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUB9jgMuC7U) by Flula - 2021-02-22
* [The Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCuGpfMSmck) - 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)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg) - 2018-03-12
* [Don’t Understand Bitcoin? This Man Will Mumble An Explanation At You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4APcgsRdW6w) by ClickHole - 2015-07-7
* [If Cryptocurrency was Honest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUs5y9leCyA)
* [If NFTs were Honest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG_v4bb2e4k)
* [Brave New Web](https://medium.com/coinmonks/brave-new-web-7bae50e916eb) - ani utopian Web3 satire by Nikolay Vlasov - 2022-04-10

### Twitter users

Whilst these users may not solely discuss crypto or web3, they do discuss it regularly, and have consistently provided well-written critique.

* https://twitter.com/web3isgreat
* https://twitter.com/ncweaver
* https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF
* https://twitter.com/smdiehl
  - [Crypto Criticism Threads](https://gist.github.com/sdiehl/7706ef44d951a2025fd658d1dd8687af)
* 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

### Tether, and other stablecoins

* [Bennett Tomlin: Tether and Bitfinex Introduction](https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/08/08/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 Bitfinex have an incredibly problematic past and are quite possibly the largest corporate fraud in history.
  * Detailed overview of Tether and Bitfinex and their connection.
* [Tether Papers: This is exactly who acquired 70% of all USDT ever issued](https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/) - 2021-11-10
* [Bloomberg: Tether’s Latest Black Eye Is CFTC Fine for Lying About Reserves](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-15/tether-bitfinex-to-pay-fines-totaling-42-5-million-cftc-says) - 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?](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-mystery-where-s-the-69-billion-backing-the-stablecoin-tether) - 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](./assets/anyone-seen-tethers-billions.pdf))
* [Bloomberg: Tether Fails to Dispel Mystery on Stablecoin’s Crucial Reserves](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-03/tether-gives-more-details-on-assets-backing-crypto-stablecoin) - 2021-12-03 - Holding include $30.6 billion in commercial paper and CDs. About $1 billion moved from reverse repo notes to money funds

### Central Bank Digital Currencies

* [Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/money-and-payments-discussion-paper.htm) - 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 system and discusses the different types of digital payment methods and assets that have emerged in recent years, including stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. It concludes by examining the potential benefits and risks of a CBDC, and identifies specific policy considerations."

### Trading/Market Microstructure/Security Risks

* [Quantifying Blockchain Extractable Value: How dark is the forest?](https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.05511) - 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](https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.14021) - Zhou et al., 2020. Technical paper detailing the "front-running" that occurs on Ethereum.
* [An Anatomy of Bitcoin Price Manipulation](https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/01/09/an-anatomy-of-bitcoin-price-manipulation/) - Matt Ranger, 2022. Speculative analysis of centralized cryptocurrency exchange market data to support a price manipulation hypothesis.

### Former bitcoin enthusiasts turned skeptics

* [Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely.](https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html) by Angelino Desmet - 12-03-2021
* [I wish I never bought bitcoin.](https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/greed.html) by Angelino Desmet - 01-06-2020

### Religious skeptical angles

#### Buddhist

* [Sujato Bhikkhu on Crypto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA_cfLqIkA0) by Sujato Bhikkhu. A monk explains why crypto is incompatible with the teachings of the Buddha from both moral and spiritual dimensions.

#### Christian

* [The Christian case against Bitcoin and blockchain]( https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/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](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/faqs-know-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?](https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christian-invest-bitcoin/) by Greg Phelan, 2021-10-27.

---

## What is blockchain, web3, etc.

Best intros/overviews of blockchain, crypto, web3, etc.

* [On Blockchain and Trust](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html) - February 12, 2019 by Bruce Schneier. The article also appeared on wired.com as [There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology](https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-blockchain-technology/).
- [The Myth of Decentralization and Lies about Web 2.0](https://www.emilygorcenski.com/post/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

Here we collect the best theses for why blockchain/crypto“currency”/web3 is supposedly important/interesting/world-changing.

### Bitcoin

* [Bitcoin for the Open-Minded Skeptic](https://www.matthuang.com/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)](https://www.paradigm.xyz/2020/05/7-things-to-read-about-bitcoin-for-institutional-investors/) - May 2020 - by [[people/Matt Huang]]

### General

* [JumpCrypto Crypto Reading List (on Github)](https://github.com/JumpCrypto/crypto-reading-list)

### Web3

* [Sean Bonner: Why Web3](https://blog.seanbonner.com/2021/10/26/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 own accounts, own their own futures…So if you are asking “Why Web3?” The answer is simple. Web3 is the future."

### Fat protocols

From https://www.usv.com/writing/2016/08/fat-protocols/

> The previous generation of shared protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, etc.) produced immeasurable amounts of value, but most of it got captured and re-aggregated on top at the applications layer, largely in the form of data (think Google, Facebook and so on). The Internet stack, in terms of how value is distributed, is composed of “thin” protocols and “fat” applications.
>
> This relationship between protocols and applications is reversed in the blockchain application stack. Value concentrates at the shared protocol layer and only a fraction of that value is distributed along at the applications layer. It’s a stack with “fat” protocols and “thin” applications.

* [Crypto Tokens and the Coming Age of Protocol Innovation](https://continuations.com/post/148098927445/crypto-tokens-and-the-age-of-protocol-innovation) - 2016-07-28 - by Albert Wenger at USV. Move about incentivizing investment in the protocols
* [Fat Protocols](https://www.usv.com/writing/2016/08/fat-protocols/) - Aug 2016 - Joel Monegro at USV - more about incentivizing adoption

### Fairer governance

Can support more democratic, distributed governance, e.g. cooperatives (somehow). Can save Democracy.

* [If I Only had a Heart: a DisCO Manifesto](https://disco.coop/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 colorful pages, you will read about how DisCOs are a P2P/Commons, cooperative and Feminist Economic alternative to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). The DisCO Manifesto also includes some background on topics like blockchain, AI, the commons, feminism, cooperatives, cyberpunk, and more."
* [Wired: The Father of Web3 Wants You to Trust Less](https://www.wired.com/story/web3-gavin-wood-interview/) - 2021-11-29 - Gavin Wood, who coined the term Web3 in 2014, believes decentralized technologies are the only hope of preserving liberal democracy.

### Fairer Economy

* [Li Jin on the future of the creator economy](https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2021/11/08/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 there. See https://rufuspollock.com/fixing-facebook/

## Reference

History of speculation, manias, etc.

* Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor (1998)
* [Manias, Panics, and. Crashes. A History of Financial Crises](https://delong.typepad.com/manias.pdf) by by CP Kindleberger (1978)

## Inbox

This is a section for links that haven't yet been reviewed and/or allocated to a particular section.

* 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](https://www.lynalden.com/proof-of-stake/) - 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 article and could fit under multiple headings here.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/anticryptocurrency/ - reddit with a significant number of links
* https://www.profgalloway.com/web3/ - 2022-01-15 - Prof Scott Galloway @ NYU. Unequal, focused on getting rich, facilitating crime, centralized
* [Cryptoeconomics as a Limitation on Governance](https://osf.io/wzf85/?view_only=a10581ae9a804aa197ac39ebbba05766) - 2021-11-11 - Nathan Schneider, University of Colorado Boulder
* [Financial Times: Matt Damon’s crypto ad is more than just cringeworthy](https://www.ft.com/content/3fac474e-aa34-439a-8bdb-32b576fe2687) (paywall)
* [Francesca Bria on Decentralisation, Sovereignty, and Web3](https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/francesca-bria-on-decentralisation/)
* [Booming NFT art market plagued by 'mind-blowing' fraud](https://news.trust.org/item/20220118122426-mv9tu/)

Pros

* [BanklessDAO: State of the DAOs #7: Social Tokens and the Future of Work](https://banklessdao.substack.com/p/state-of-the-daos-7-social-tokens) - 2022-01-13
* [Scanning the European Ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies for Social and Public Good](https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC121675) - Oct 2020 - by Samer Hassan and colleagues
  * Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/samerP2P/status/1317123399295041541

### Other suggestions

* New topic concerning the psychological harm, such as: gambling, greed, cultism, etc.
