Crypto Matters — Just Not For The Reasons You Might Think
I watched Bill Maher’s recent diatribe against crypto a day or two ago, and suddenly my feeds seem to be filled with people decrying blockchain phenomena like NFTs as pyramid schemes and nonsense.
They’re not entirely wrong.
Fiat vs Crypto
It’s important, however, to take a good, long look at our existing “fiat” currencies before taking potshots at a technology that is fundamentally the same, but easily better in a myriad of ways.
Let’s begin by defining money, a fiction that enables us to transact across domains. It’s a fiction that’s sufficiently decoupled from reality that we can make fair transactions where that wouldn’t otherwise be possible: it’s not easy to determine the value of an item of clothing in coconuts, or units of electricity. Once upon a time the value of money was tied to scarce natural resources, but for decades it’s been completely artificial, controlled and manipulated by organizations and forces that generally do not have “the greater good” at heart.
Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, by design has no master. Anyone can mine, anyone can play. If I can earn it, I can spend it, and the requirements for setting up a wallet and transacting are so minimal that the most basic of smartphones can handle it with ease. It’s…