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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.
https://github.com/life-itself/web3

The problem with NFTs - 2022-01-21 - by Dan Olson (Documentary) 📺 [👉 Highly recommended 👈]
Three things Web3 should fix in 2022 - 28 Jan 2022
The Case Against Crypto - December 31, 2021
Blockchainism - December 11, 2021
Web3 is Bullshit - December 4, 2021
The Internet's Casino Boats - December 1, 2021
The Token Disconnect - November 27, 2021
The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger - November 24, 2021
Ice-Nine for Markets - November 23, 2021
The Tinkerbell Griftopia - November 19, 2021
Decentralized Woo Hoo - November 16, 2021
The Intellectual Incoherence of Cryptoassets - November 7, 2021
On Unintentional Scams - July 23, 2021
How to Destroy Bitcoin - July 13, 2021
The Non-Innovation of Cryptocurrency - July 7, 2021
The Oncoming Ransomware Storm - May 11, 2021
Et tu, Signal? - April 7, 2021
The Political Case for a Blanket Cryptocurrency Ban - March 30, 2021
Bitcoin: The Postmodern Ponzi - February 27, 2021
The Crypto Chernobyl - February 10, 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.
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://twitter.com/tante)
Tante's Web3/NFT FAQ
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
It's not still the early days
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 Crypto - 2021-12-03 by Martin O'Leary
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 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 - 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 - 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 a puff of history." (NB: he predicts massive appreciation in bitcoin and is concerned how it can undermine government and tax revenue.)
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 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 - 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 - 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 issues. Summary of critique:
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.”
Cryptocurrency and Fiat Money - 2017-12-23
Economics Nobel prize winner, Richard Thaler: “The market that looks most like a bubble to me is Bitcoin and its brethren” - 2018-01-22
'Only good for drug dealers': More Nobel prize winners snub bitcoin - 2018-04-27
The Old Allure of New Money - 2018-05-21
Nobel Prize Winning Economist Abhijit Banerjee: Is Blockchain the Key to Financial Inclusion? - 2020-01-20
Cryptocurrencies, Debt, and the Economy: Steve Keen interviewed by Layne Hartsell - 2021-02-17
Prannoy Roy's Townhall With Amartya Sen On Economy, Farm Laws: Full Transcript - 2021-03-06
Famed economist Jeffrey Sachs rails against Bitcoin: Highly polluting and ‘almost like counterfeiting’ - 2021-03-16
Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin - 2021-05-20
What the Crypto Crowd Doesn't Understand About Economics - 2021-06-20
What is money, really? And why Bitcoin is not the answer (even if blockchain is brilliant & potentially helpful in democratising money) - 2021-08-02
The Bitcoin Fountainhead - 2021-10-05
Nobel Prize Economist Joseph Stiglitz Calls Regulators to Ban Cryptocurrencies - 2021-10-28
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 on Crypto & the Left, and Techno-Feudalism - 2022-01-26
The Crypto Crash Strengthens the Case for Crypto - 2022-01-27
Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing - 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 - 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](https://twitter.com/edzitron/status/1495891031979704321)
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](https://ft.com/content/83a14261-598d-4601-87fc-5dde528b33d0)
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
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
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
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.
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 named BeanieMaxi - 2022-01-17 ([cached](./assets/Thread by @NFTethics re beaniemaxi.pdf))
Jacobin: NFTs Are, Quite Simply, Bullshit - 2022-01-26
NFT tickets — a realistic look at a big trend - 12-14
“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)
Crypto Games: Report from hell - Good video reviewing and discussing crypto games
Crypto Curious - South Park on NFTs - 2021-12-21
N-FT: Non-Functioning Tower - NFT satire - 2022-03-07
“a normal person explains cryptocurrency” - 2021-12-22
“my crypto friend calls me every day and this is what he sound like” - 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 - 2015-07-7
If Cryptocurrency was Honest
If NFTs were Honest
Brave New Web - ani utopian Web3 satire by Nikolay Vlasov - 2022-04-10
Crypto Criticism Threads
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 Bitfinex have an incredibly problematic past and are quite possibly the largest corporate fraud in history.
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](./assets/anyone-seen-tethers-billions.pdf))
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
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 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."
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.
Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely. - 12-03-2021
I wish I never bought bitcoin. - 01-06-2020
Sujato Bhikkhu on Crypto
The Christian case against Bitcoin and blockchain - 03-2022.
What you should know about Bitcoin - researched, accurate introduction to Bitcoin from a Christian perspective, 2017-12-27.
Ask the Economist: Should a Christian Invest in Bitcoin? - 10-27.
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](https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-blockchain-technology/).
The Myth of Decentralization and Lies about Web 2.0 - 2022-01-07 by Emily Gorcenski
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]]
JumpCrypto Crypto Reading List (on Github)
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 own accounts, own their own futures…So if you are asking “Why Web3?” The answer is simple. Web3 is the future."
Crypto Tokens and the Coming Age of Protocol Innovation - 2016-07-28 - by Albert Wenger at USV. Move about incentivizing investment in the protocols
Fat Protocols - Aug 2016 - Joel Monegro at USV - more about incentivizing adoption
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 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 - 2021-11-29 - Gavin Wood, who coined the term Web3 in 2014, believes decentralized technologies are the only hope of preserving liberal democracy.
Li Jin on the future of the creator economy - Shared ownership and control of online platforms is the way forward (via crypto)
Manias, Panics, and. Crashes. A History of Financial Crises
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 article and could fit under multiple headings here.
Cryptoeconomics as a Limitation on Governance - 2021-11-11 - Nathan Schneider, University of Colorado Boulder
Financial Times: Matt Damon’s crypto ad is more than just cringeworthy
Francesca Bria on Decentralisation, Sovereignty, and Web3
Booming NFT art market plagued by 'mind-blowing' fraud
BanklessDAO: State of the DAOs #7: Social Tokens and the Future of Work - 2022-01-13
Scanning the European Ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies for Social and Public Good - Oct 2020 - by Samer Hassan and colleagues

Keywords

solana 1 rollups 1 nft 1 ethereum 1 defi 1 dao 1 cryptocurrency 1 cosmos 1 bitcoin 1