Part I – Bitcoin v/s Ethereum (and Other Crypto) Culture

Part II – Key Opinion Makers and Cultural Influencers

Part III – Lexicon and Memes

Part IV – Satoshi and the one true Bitcoin

One of the most enduring mysteries of crypto is the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. A subject of intense debate, there are many theories around the creator of Bitcoin. Some of which inch towards gossip, conspiracy and tin foil hat territory.

Whether Satoshi is a single person or a group. Whether they are alive or have passed away. Whether this persona is a creation of intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA. Whether it is a pseudonym for the companies behind Bitcoin. Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi and Motorola. Countless manhours of research later, no one is closer to the truth.

Names that make the rounds are of well-known cypherpunks, cryptographers and computer scientists:

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• Adam Back. Inventor of Hashcash, a cryptographic Proof of Work (PoW) system to thwart spam. Not only are Adam Back and his invention mentioned in the Bitcoin whitepaper, hashcash is also used in Bitcoin’s mining function. Believed to be the first email correspondent with Satoshi. Back has not made his exchanges public to protect Satoshi from doxing. Currently he serves as the CEO of Blockstream, a Bitcoin-focused company he co-founded. He denies being Satoshi.

• Wei Dai. Proposer of b-money, a distributed money system that was one of the precursors to Bitcoin. On Adam Back’s recommendation, Satoshi reached out to Wei Dai to talk about b-money. The Bitcoin whitepaper mentions both Dai and b-money as references. The smallest unit of the Ethereum cryptocurrency is named after him. 1 Wei = 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 of an ETH. He denies being Satoshi.

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• The late Hal Finney. Creator of Reusable Proof of Work (RPoW), a cryptographic proof system for digital payments. Described as the “world's first implemented cryptocurrency”, RPoW was another forerunner of Bitcoin. As one of the earliest supporters of Bitcoin, Finney collaborated (1, 2, 3) with Satoshi to make significant contributions at the time. He was the first person after Satoshi to run the software, receive a transaction and mine a block. Thereby establishing that Bitcoin worked. Hal Finney was cryopreserved after passing away to ALS in 2014. He denied being Satoshi.

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• Nick Szabo. Pioneer of smart contracts and designer of Bit gold, one more Bitcoin predecessor. Originally not there, Szabo and Bit gold mentions were added to the Bitcoin website in early 2009. Satoshi has also separately acknowledged their influence in Bitcointalk. Szabo’s essay on money was an inspiration for Hal Finney’s RPoW. In contrast to the other three, there is no evidence or acknowledgment of communication between Szabo and Satoshi. He denies being Satoshi.

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Among other commonly debated possibilities are David Chaum (founder of DigiCash, creator of ecash), Phil Zimmermann (developer of PGP), Len Sassaman, one or more founders of the Cypherpunks mailing list (Eric Hughes, Tim May, John Gilmore) etc.

Despite all the cryptography-related possibilities above, the most familiar Satoshi face in media is an unlikely one. In March 2014, Newsweek published a report that they had found Satoshi. Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a retired contractual engineer living in California. In a weird bit of coincidence, Hal Finney’s house was a few blocks away. Dorian denied (1, 2) being Satoshi. He stressed that the investigating reporter had misunderstood him. A linguistic analysis confirmed the same.

But the resultant media frenzy had already disrupted his life. To apologise for the trouble, Andreas Antonopoulos arranged a fundraiser for him. Donations totalling ~USD 23k at the time (47.5 BTC) poured in. And as of today the address has received a sum of 102 BTC. Presumably all from donors. Satoshi is also supposed to have attempted to save Dorian from the media glare. This is disputed though (1, 2). Nonetheless, Dorian Nakamoto is now a permanent memetic fixture on BT and CT.

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As the search for Satoshi continues, a recurrent reminder is to not create a cult of personality. Or to abandon the quest altogether to protect Satoshi. With the possibility of the identity never coming to light, “We Are All Satoshi” is an oft repeated phrase (1, 2).

Faketoshis and the Bizarre Claims of Craig Wright

And then there are the self-proclaimed Satoshis. Or Faketoshis. A pejorative for individuals whose claims of being Satoshi are viewed with skepticism. From Jörg Molt (1, 2) to Ronald Keala Kua Maria to Jurgen Debo to James Bilal Khalid Caan and more (1, 2, 3, 4).

The most notorious of them is Craig Steven Wright (CSW). Founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), a forked version of Bitcoin. Jimmy Wales, Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks, William Shatner, the late Dan Kaminsky, Tim Draper, Matthew Green, Andrew O'Hagan, Adam Back, Vitalik Buterin, CZ, Emin Gün Sirer, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, Greg Maxwell, Jameson Lopp and many others from the tech and crypto community have denounced him. Even the two publications which broke the stories that CSW was Satoshi retracted days later (1, 2). Both suspected that the “leaked” tip-off documents they had received were forgeries.

Nevertheless, CSW continues to be the most persistent Satoshi claimant. So much so that some Bitcoiners (1, 2) have made full-blown archives (1, 2, 3) of his inconsistencies. From his public statements (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). His works (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7*). And legal disputes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

*The r/bsv subreddit debunks CSW’s claims.

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To deal with criticism, CSW has resorted to threats and numerous litigations (1, 2). Albeit unsuccessfully (1, 2). Tying up detractors for years. Often levelling libel charges (1, 2, 3) in UK courts among other known tactics (1, 2). Cex’es which delist his coin, BSV, have lawsuits brought against them. Bitcoin developers have been dragged to court to coerce impossible confiscations for him. Also unsuccessfully. So far. More on that below. Several platforms hosting the Bitcoin software and whitepaper have been forced to take them down in UK jurisdictions. Because of continuous hounding over copyright claims. To CSW’s annoyance, this has triggered more hostings to flip him off. Including from governments.

A conclusive proof by any claimant would be to sign a message or move funds using Satoshi’s known keys. For a brief while, one early Bitcoiner was led to believe CSW had them. Gavin Andresen was a contributor who Satoshi had entrusted with maintaining the project. After a now infamous private signing session in London he was “convinced” of CSW. Some alleged foul play. Others felt Gavin was under duress from saying otherwise. Eventually he opened up about his suspicions of being duped (1, 2). He said, “it was a mistake to trust Craig Wright”.

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CSW now insists he has deliberately damaged the device which contained Satoshi’s keys. The only indisputable evidence that could have linked him to Satoshi. Even more peculiar is his reluctance to seek out Satoshi’s coins worth tens of billions. He has instead spent considerable resources to confiscate various other wallets and funds. Some of those pursuits have backfired in spectacular fashion (1, 2, 3).

In spite of that, he has taken Bitcoin devs and maintainers to court over yet another set of addresses. CSW’s claim: Burglars stole (1, 2) private keys to “his” (1, 2) wallets containing >100k BTC (~USD 2.6 Bn today). And for some reason they deleted his only copy of the keys. Instead of just moving the Bitcoin elsewhere till date. The most bizarre twist, one of those wallets was once involved in a notorious heist (1, 2).

CSW’s demand: Bitcoin developers must make changes to the Bitcoin protocol somehow to give him access to those coins. Changes reminiscent of his blockchain, BSV (1, 2). Creating backdoors to recover private keys is not possible. So he is trying to force a court-mandated rollback of a decentralised blockchain. A near improbable endeavour which goes against crypto ideals of immutability and censorship-resistance. Not only is mutilating Bitcoin a no-no, any retrospective change to the chain would be flat out rejected by the network of nodes and forked off. Not to mention the disastrous implications for open source development (1, 2).

These campaigns of intimidation have harassed developers and waylaid Bitcoiners. Earning CSW and his associates near unanimous scorn across CT to the point of mockery (1, 2, 3, 4). Irrespective of tribalism (1, 2). It has boiled over to a point where his partners have started to backpedal (1, 2). While disillusioned supporters turn on him over broken promises.

Bitcoin and its mimics

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Bitcoin is a fairly complicated topic because it serves many purposes:

• The Bitcoin token (ticker: $BTC or the less popular, $XBT) serves as an asset for investment. As money for remittances. As a tradeable commodity for speculation.

• The Bitcoin network serves as a payment system for merchants. As a communication grid. As a tool for political subversion.

• The Bitcoin blockchain serves as an immutable database. As a distributed ledger.

• The Bitcoin software serves as a protocol for other applications to be built on top.

And so on. This is why descriptions for Bitcoin have such variety – internet money, freedom money, gold 2.0, schmuck insurance etc. Satoshi said “Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to”.

There is no official body in charge of Bitcoin. There is no The Bitcoin Company that controls its means of production#. No The Bitcoin Association that represents it@. No headquarter it operates out of. No spokesperson on its payroll. Anyone claiming otherwise may not have your best interest in mind.

#A “Bitcoin company” is just any business that deals in Bitcoin. To custody, transact, mine, run nodes etc.

@There is a “Bitcoin Association” set up as a lobby/PR/advocacy group for one of Bitcoin’s forks. More on that below. It has nothing to do with Bitcoin though.

The website Bitcoin.org is maintained as an open source project. Originally registered and managed by Satoshi and Martti Malmi, the first Bitcoin developer. It was later handed over to volunteers. Similarly, the Bitcoin software is free and open source. Managed pro bono by volunteers again. Anyone can contribute to it. Bitcoin companies, NGOs, research organisations etc. sponsor some of these developers and maintainers with donations and grants.

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The rules of Bitcoin are enforced by the software’s code and verified by thousands of volunteer-run nodes worldwide. Anyone can set up a node and become part of the network. But no entity can change the rules and regulations unilaterally.

TLDR: Bitcoin has no rulers. No controlling interests. No gatekeepers. No copyright. No patent. A true decentralised paradigm.

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As a result, many Bitcoin imitations crop up uninhibited. Coins and tokens that should not be mistaken for the real thing. Like memecoins that use “Bitcoin” as a joke (HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu’s ticker is $BITCOIN). Or sketchy projects and scams that use misleading advertising to entrap the gullible. “Better Bitcoin”, “Bitcoin, but different”, “Just like Bitcoin”, “Bitcoin of the East”, “Bitcoin for travel industry” etc.

And because there is no leader, factions attempt coups from time to time. To wrest control over Bitcoin itself. These vested interests try to force contentious changes. Pushing for changes in the software that are not backward-compatible and persuading nodes to support them. The subset of nodes which agree to run the new code create a Bitcoin hard fork. By splitting away into a new network with a new chain and new coin.

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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and BSV are the most well-known contentious forks. BCH forked from Bitcoin and BSV forked from BCH. The bone of contention for these splinter groups was the size of blocks in the chain. They wanted to increase the block size from the limit hardcoded by Satoshi. With this in mind, Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn, another early Bitcoin contributor, made the first notable fork called Bitcoin XT. Thus igniting The Blocksize War.

Despite having powerful interests on their side the “big blockers” could not get their way with Bitcoin. After a failure to reach middle ground (The New York Agreement^) BCH forked using Bitcoin XT as template. Years later BSV forked from BCH over further disagreements.

^Failure of NYA is seen as a victory of David over Goliath. It established that independent nodes held sway over the network. Contrary to the long held belief that Bitcoin companies and mining coalitions had controlling authority.

Contentious hard forks have a shared history with Bitcoin. Until the point of their split. Thereafter they operate as separate projects. Some stray from dearly held principles. Yet continue to obscure their difference from Bitcoin. For example, BSV marketeers (1, 2) have a reputation for blurring the lines. Through events. Lobbying efforts (1, 2). Publications. Setting up entities like “Bitcoin Association”. As a subtle distinction, they will sometimes say “BitCoin” instead of “Bitcoin” to refer to BSV.

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Non-Bitcoin endeavours get co-opted too. Case in point, Jack Dorsey-backed TBD‘s Web5 initiative. Launched in Jun’22, Web5 is a non-blockchain implementation of a decentralised web experience. Discussed more in Part VII – Tribalism. Months after TBD’s announcement, news of a “Web 5.0” conference came forth. “Web5” was being blockchain’ised at this event. The “Conference Visionary”? CSW.

On a similar note, when I first started reading about Bitcoin in earnest Bitcoin.com puzzled me. Because it addressed BTC as “Bitcoin Core” while hinting that BCH was “Bitcoin”. It was only later that I realised the site was a for-profit (1, 2) owned by BCH affiliates. If you are on Reddit, please note that the r/btc subreddit is also managed by BCH supporters. A result of blocksize politics. Even the @Bitcoin handle on X/Twitter was once owned by a BCH advocate.

Whether deliberate or not, obfuscations like these confuse the unaware, trouble the aware (1, 2) and lead to angry confrontations. Giving promoters of forks a dubious reputation in Bitcoin circles (1, 2). So I hope this part will help you discern between forks, fugazis and the real thing.

Disclaimer: None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.

NOTE: Also published in HackerNoon and Publish0x.

Up Next:

Part V – Centralisation v/s Decentralisation

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Part I – Bitcoin v/s Ethereum (and Other Crypto) Culture

Part II – Key Opinion Makers and Cultural Influencers

Part III – Lexicon and Memes

In Part I we asked if terms like GM, GN, WAGMI, HODL, DYOR, probably nothing, ser etc. sounded familiar. In this part we will discuss crypto-speak and memes. Their roots, meanings and contexts.

Crypto-native lingo and memes have all kinds of origins. 4chan fitness boards. Trading subreddits. Gaming forums. Developer communities. Artist collectives. And so on. As Ekin Genç wrote in VICE, “Memes from one subculture travel to another when an influx of participants occurs”.

(Image Sources: The Matrix, Spiderman, Person of Interest, Inception)

They convey greetings. Refer to price action. Express camaraderie. Or mockery. About oneself. Or to state sponsored hacks. Or they could be shitposts. Most of these are intuitive and self-explanatory. Those with more serious undertones (1, 2) are closer to Bitcoin culture.

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Pop culture references or derivations of well-known characters are common. Like Wojak, Yes Chad, Hide The Pain Harold, Bogdanoffs (RIP), Rickrolling, the Guy Fawkes mask and more. So are animals like the Shiba Inu dog (or Doge), Pepe the Frog*, Bobo the Bear, Honey Badger etc. Inspired from memestock subreddits, cartoon avatars of apes, bears (or bera) and bulls (or bulla) are recurrent motifs for trading-linked memes.

Apes are a frequent theme of NFT collections as well. Like BAYC, MAYC, Degenerate Ape Academy, y00ts, OnChainMonkey among others. The Shiba Inu dog too is the subject of many dog-themed memetokens (more on that below). Apart from derivations, both CT and BT memes also incorporate original imagery. Like wassies and smoltings#, Carlos Matos (BitConnect), Bitcoin Wizards etc.

*On a side note, Pepe has had some controversial usage in non-crypto forums. Pepe artist Matt Furie has since made concerted efforts to reclaim its apolitical nature.

#Wassie/smolting is explained in Part II. Search for “inversebrah”.

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To the dismay of many crypto OGs, there is an entire category of coins and tokens based on memes. Created as a joke. Think Dogecoin which became an inspiration for many to follow. $DOGE was made to satirise price speculation in cryptocurrencies. Its announcement post puts it succinctly in Comic Sans: “much profit many coin wow”.

PS. While some of these memecoins are innocuous, many aren’t. Trying to make money off of speculative buyers hoping the “joke” would catch on. In etherscan (a block explorer for Ethereum), type “Doge” or “Elon” or “Shiba” or “Inu” or “Pepe” in the search bar. Check the suggested results that auto-fill the drop down list. It will be full of imitation tokens and NFT collections trying to latch on to a fad.

With regards to the thematic tone of crypto talk, there is no set template or subject. Tragicomedy, self-deprecation, geek humour, dark jokes (Trigger Warning: Blood. Context: 5$ wrench attack), shitposting, ribbing (context), irreverence (context:1, 2), absurdism and trollbaiting (context) are cornerstones of CT discourse. Copy pastas are routine. With negative news, scams and FUD (explained below) being ever-present, satire, irony and sarcasm are oft-used coping mechanisms (discussed more in Bane of Scams in Crypto in Part VIII).

In the months following the collapse of Terra, 3AC and FTX, there was an air of anxiety all around. Fear mongering about more projects imploding was constant. Names like Solana, WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) and WETH (Wrapped Ethereum) would come up. Countless obituaries of Bitcoin and crypto were written. Add to that, a growing perception that regulators and mass media were handling the Terra/3AC/FTX issues with kid gloves. At the expense of legitimate crypto entities facing undue heat. So an annoyed CT started to jokingly “break” the news that WETH was failing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Unless you were clued in, you could have been spooked. As anticipated, the inside joke did not land with some publications. And CT scoffed (1, 2, 3, 4) even more.

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To be fair, the obscurity (Ref: 1, 2. Warning: Rabbit Hole) of certain tropes can confound any unsavvy observer. This often results in non-crypto media being unable to meaningfully report on the goings-on (see Media’s reporting of crypto in Part VIII). A consequence that people in crypto are well aware of. Suffice to say Poe’s Law is permanently in effect (1, 2, 3, 4) around these parts. A reason why some prominent accounts have “intern” accounts on socials. To post memes. Or for other content that they would not share from their main.

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Taking inspiration from 6529’s tweet thread on NFT lexicon, here are the top 69 crypto phrases and memes:

CT: As also mentioned in Part II, Crypto Twitter. Unless the context is Twitter in particular, “CT” can mean any crypto community. The most active being on Twitter. “Bitcoin Twitter” (BT) and “NFT Twitter” follow from the same nomenclature. Discord, Telegram, Reddit are also favoured hangout spots. And now apps on Nostr too; discussed further in Part VI – Politics, Lifestyle, Values. Bitcointalk is a popular forum for more serious banter.

There are, of course, cultural differences between each of these communities. For example, Crypto Reddit wasn’t a big fan of NFTs until the introduction of Reddit Avatars recently. As they came to terms with it, their Twitter brethren watched with amusement.

GM: Good Morning. Greeting for any time of the day. GA (Good Afternoon), GE (Good Evening), GN (Good Night) aren’t as popular.

GMI: Gonna Make It / Going to Make It. Emotes appreciation and wishing success. “She runs a Bitcoin node? GMI”.

NGMI: Not Gonna Make It. Opposite of GMI. An expression of disapproval. “Boomer thinks crypto is dead. Lol NGMI”.

WAGMI: We’re All Gonna Make It. An expression of comradeship and optimism. It came from the late bodybuilder Aziz Shavershian (“Zyzz”) who motivated his followers with this.

HODL: Hold i.e. holding on to an investment (or a bag) and not selling when markets go south. This came from the misspelled title of a drunken post on Bitcointalk. That post is now a stuff of crypto legends. SODL (sold) and BUIDL (build) are intentional typos that follow from this. HODL has been retrofitted with a backronym: Hold On for Dear Life.

PS. HODLers becomes bagholders when their bags are at massive losses

BTFD: Buy The F*#king Dip. An advice to buy something that has dipped i.e. dropped in price.

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HFSP: Have Fun Staying Poor. Used in a similar context as NGMI. More familiar on BT. Directed towards a detractor. “Carstens says CBDCs will kill Bitcoin. He can HFSP”. Sometimes it is spelt out letter by letter by different people as a diss response thread.

Rug: Or rug pull. When a team abandons a project (exit scam) and/or cashes out of its token. Thereby crashing the price. A metaphorical rug being pulled from under the feet of investors by team members. This is also now a catch-all term for any kind of sketchy insider behaviour. “The last deployed contract looks fishy. Think it’s a rug?”.

Probably Nothing: A satirical phrase to express the opposite sentiment. It suggests an important piece of development or news. “El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Probably Nothing”.

Wen + word: A portmanteau of “Wen” (i.e. when) and the anticipation of an event. A few examples below.

WenBinance – When will this token list on the Binance exchange. WenCoinbase, WenKraken, WenKuCoin etc. follow from the same nomenclature.

WenMoon – When will this token moon i.e. go up in price astronomically

WenLambo – When can I afford a Lamborghini (from this crypto mooning)

WenHomeless – When will I lose my home to this crypto investment (satire)

The Wen + word phrases have gotten worn out over the years and are not as common anymore. Many of these were born during the ICO mania of 2017. But they are still part of crypto lore.

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Funds are Safu: Funds are safe. Binance founder CZ used to tweet “Funds are safe” after critical security incidents. Crypto YouTuber Bizonacci made a viral video titled “Funds Are Safu” alluding to this. Subsequently, CZ started saying “safu” instead of “safe”. Binance even launched a fund as a hat tip to the meme.

Diamond Hands: People who HODL their bags through market volatility are said to have diamond hands

Paper Hands: Opposite of diamond hands. People who SODL their bags at the first sign of trouble have paper hands.

Pump, Dump: Pump is a rapid increase in price. Dump is the opposite.

Pump and Dump (P&D): A fraudulent scheme that uses FOMO (fear of missing out) to manipulate investors into buying someone else’s bags. It starts with holder(s) of a token spreading misleading hyped up claims to induce the unaware into frenzied buying. As buy pressure pumps the token, the holders sell their bags fast. This causes the token to dump. Thereby turning the new investors into hapless bagholders. Beware of Telegram channels and Discord groups that offer “signals”. These are almost always P&D schemes orchestrated by scammers. A dead giveaway of the scam is that they usually target unknown low liquidity tokens.

(3, 3): A mutually beneficial payout for all parties in a competitive setting. Olympus DAO, a project espousing benefits of staking, made it a widely-used notation. Subsequently as consensus grew around Olympus being a ponzi, its token $OHM went into a slow decay. And “(3, 3)” has gone into relative disuse since then.

Can devs do something: An acknowledgment that developers cannot solve every crisis. Especially those connected to price. Said ironically. Popularised by a copypasta that was turned into a Cameo video. “ShibaPepeMonkeyInu keeps crashing hard. My bags are now underwater. Can devs do something?”

FUD: Fear, uncertainty, doubt. Scare tactics to create panic.

Moonboi: The opposite of a FUDster. An overzealous fan of a cryptocurrency, focused specifically on WenMoon. From my experience, when moonbois grow bitter from disappointment they turn into FUDsters.

DYOR: Do your own research. An advisory to conduct one’s own due diligence before taking risks.

NFA: Not Financial Advice. Used in the same context as DYOR. A disclaimer that the OP of an article or a post or a video is not qualified to give financial advice. Like most phrases in crypto, it can be said either sincerely or as a joke.

Few / Few understand this: When an important information or implication of an event is not public knowledge. Can be stated in a similar context as “Probably Nothing”.

IYKYK: If You Know You Know. Being privy to inside information or jokes. Akin to “Few understand this”.

Up Only: A wisecrack for something whose value appreciation is inevitable

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Bitcoin fixes this: An adage about Bitcoin’s role in solving systemic problems. Used both seriously as well as a joke to parody silver bullet solutionism.

Boating accident: A trope to exercise plausible deniability. Relating to ownership of things one would like to keep out of the government’s reach. Adapted from gold and gun enthusiast communities. “The President can pass an Executive Order to seize everyone’s Bitcoin? Sad I lost mine to a boating accident”.

In it for the tech: Sarcasm for when one is interested in crypto for price speculation and not for the technology. “Your bio says *Web3 nerd* while your portfolio is an endless list of memecoins. Clearly in it for the tech”.

If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry: A copypasta of Satoshi snapping at EOS founder Dan Larimer over a disagreement. Now used to respond to someone being obtuse. Or as a joke (that doesn’t land outside of CT).

Feature not a bug: Programmer humour for unintended consequences to a design. Or an earnest argument that a supposed flaw is actually intended by design. “Bitcoin mining requires a lot of energy. It is a feature not a bug”.

West Ham: West Ham (1)

Don’t trust, verify: A fundamental tenet of Bitcoinism i.e. trustlessness. It alludes to the preference of directly verifying information. Instead of having to trust a third party or a middleman. How? By checking information straight from an immutable database like a blockchain. Using one’s own node. This is why a true blue Bitcoiner is expected to run a node. Verifying blockchain data by reading it off someone else’s client is for amateurs.

Vires In Numeris: Strength in numbers. Another popular phrase in Bitcoin communities. Originated from Bitcointalk. It is a double entendre that means: 1. Bitcoin is backed by maths (i.e. cryptography) and 2. Bitcoin is robust because of its large network of supporters.

Ultra sound money: Bitcoin being sound money is a familiar saying among Bitcoiners. Ethereum as ultra sound money is the Ethereum community’s answer to that. It gained prominence after The Merge (Ethereum’s transition to PoS / Proof of Stake). PoS is discussed in Part VI – Politics, Lifestyle, Values.

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.eth: Like the (bat + speaker) emojis, “.eth” in social media handles is also a gesture of support for Ethereum. It relates to Ethereum Name Service (ENS). A naming system like Domain Name Service. .eth names can be registered and thereafter traded / transferred as NFTs. For example, Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano’s Twitter name says “sassal.eth”. This suggests he may own the “sassal” namespace on ENS and has linked it to a wallet he owns. So apps and services that recognise ENS names can resolve “sassal.eth” into 0x648aA14e4424e0825A5cE739C8C68610e143FB79 (his wallet address).

The beloved late hacktivist Aaron Swartz was an early proposer of a blockchain-based naming system for Bitcoin. No native naming service ended up being widely adopted though. But you might still notice some accounts sporting the “.btc” tag as a hat tip to Bitcoin.

PS. Coincidentally, btc.us, a naming system on the Stacks blockchain sells .btc namespaces that happen to work with some clients of Nostr

[Hexagon profiles on Twitter]: Twitter users who display their NFTs as profile pictures. Twitter Blue subscribers can link their Ethereum wallets to their profiles. They can then put up an NFT in that wallet as their Twitter pfp. This makes their profile picture shaped into a hexagon.

0x- / -0x: 0x is a prefix for hexadecimal naming convention on Ethereum. On crypto socials, you will find account names starting or ending with it. This is an indication of their involvement in crypto.

[Laser eyes in profile pics]: A popular profile picture aesthetic among Bitcoiners. Signals support for Bitcoin. It went viral with the #LaserEyesTill100K meme. While Bitcoin price did not cross 100k USD during that run, laser eyes continue to have high approval. So much so that political campaigns using it to critique Bitcoin’s energy usage often backfire into getting adapted by Bitcoiners instead. Leading to further derivatives and memes. Embracing pejoratives (1, 2), criticisms (1, 2, 3) and dunks (1, 2) is not unusual in Bitcoin (and other crypto) circles.

We are at the bottom / Bottom is in / Bottom signal: When markets could start to look up from gloom and doom. Sometimes used as a dismissive retort to blow off steam. As in, things couldn’t possibly get any worse than what someone said or did. Eg. Whenever Jim Cramer predicts anything negative about crypto, the replies are overwhelmingly jubilatory. Including the occasional “bottom is in”.

We are so back: Similar to “bottom is in” (1)

Top signal / We are so far from the bottom: The opposite of bottom signal. Typically a rebuke for frivolous activity. Or if Jim Cramer says anything even remotely positive about crypto lol.

Send it all to zero / We deserve to go to zero: Used in a similar sense as “top signal”. That is, as a scolding or teasing for embarrassing behaviour (1, 2, 3, 4; see Oracle Problem in Part V).

We are so early: An observational remark about crypto not being part of the popular cultural zeitgeist. Sometimes said disappointedly in response to egregious misunderstandings of basic concepts (1, 2, 3).

Down Bad / Rekt: When you take an L i.e. experience a defeat, you are down bad. When you take a massive L, you are rekt (wrecked).

Chancellor on brink of second bailout: A headline from The Times on 3rd January 2009. It was included in Bitcoin’s first block (Genesis Block) and has now achieved an iconic meme status. There are many Easter eggs like these stored in Bitcoin (1, 2).

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Not your keys, not your coin: Or “Not your keys, not your cheese”. Easily one of the top mantras of BT (and CT). If you do not control the keys to the wallet (that holds your Bitcoin), you do not have control over your Bitcoin. This is explained further in Self-Custody in Part V.

Corn: Bitcoin. Boston University’s Prof. Mark T Williams’ mispronunciation of Bitcoin on two separate occasions (1, 2) spawned the Bitcorn meme. He is now fondly called Professor Bitcorn.

Orange pill: Similar to red pill but for Bitcoin. A nocoiner on being orange pilled turns into a Bitcoiner.

1 BTC = 1 BTC: WenLambo, WenMoon, WenDump, Up Only, NGU and other crypto-speak for price action is sometimes shrugged off in OG Bitcoin circles as short term distractions. Immaterial in the long run. The most ardent supporters believe that Bitcoin will end up becoming a unit of account. Assets will be denominated in Bitcoin. So its price (in fiat terms) will be inconsequential. A situation known as Bitcoinization or Hyperbitcoinization. Hence, the only conversion rate that will count is 1 BTC = 1 BTC. 1 DOGE = 1 DOGE (for Dogecoin) and 1D = 1B (for cryptodickbutts NFT) are on similar lines but with a comedic effect.

∞/21M: This follows from the idea of hyperbitcoinization. The growth of Bitcoin as an asset will make it a dominant store of wealth absorbing the value of other asset classes. Since Bitcoin’s total supply is capped at 21 million, this would mean 21 million coins will assume the value of everything around it. Hence, ∞/21M (formula on the left in the linked image is for Bitcoin’s supply).

(Image Source)

Milady: An NFT collection with a notable community (the miladies). Crowned as one of 2022’s most influential communities by CoinDesk. With a distinctive contrarian antihero presence on crypto socials (1), the miladies can alternatively be described as the 4chan of Web3. Or CT’s agents of chaos. Due to their mysterious origins and associations (and confessions) combined with the general complexity of crypto lore, miladies have always been mired in controversy. As a result, subterfuge allegations (1, 2), rebuttals and retractions (1, 2) are a routine affair in their “schizo life”.

Flippening: The hypothetical event of Ethereum crossing Bitcoin’s total market capitalisation

Copium: Cope + Opium. Mocking someone (or oneself) who takes an L and then uses rationalisations to cope.

Hopium: Hope + Opium. When you hope for a redemption after taking an L, you are living on the drug of hopium.

(Image Sources: 1, 2)

-ooooooor: “…oooor” is added as a suffix to poke fun at a behaviour or character-type that CT finds annoying. Eg. replyoooooor, thinkoooooor, extractooooor, regulatooooor etc. A rumour-mongerer (“Hearing from sources that Bitcoin may be banned”) would become the Hearoooor.

Fren: Friend

Ser: Sir. A gender-neutral address like Fren. There are two possible origins for this: 1. Fantasy fandoms like Game of Thrones, 2. South Asians who say “Sir” quite often.

Fed: A snitch / narc / spook

Degen: Degenerate. A term of comradeship that refers to risk takers in jest. Or as a tongue-in-cheek joke for absurd recklessness. People calling themselves “autists” or “apes” (apeing into a trade, apes together strong) has a similar connotation.

Pleb: Short for plebeian. An average Joe in crypto. Like “degen” and “ape”, “pleb” is a term of kinship that refers to fellow coiners.

Suit: The opposite of a pleb. “Suit” is an umbrella term (1, 2) for elites, feds, corporates and mercenaries. An unreliable character-type. Someone whose self-interest could harm crypto. Even the simple act of wearing a suit to crypto events can throw up red flags for good reason.

Anon: Being anonymous in crypto is commonplace and not seen as an oddity. So crypto people often address each other as “anon” (1, 2). A term of endearment like “pleb”.

(Image Source)

Whale: A person with a high net worth portfolio. Or if they own a large share of a cryptocurrency or an NFT collection.

1) What: After the implosion of the FTX exchange and its sister trading firm Alameda Research, their founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) tried to come clean on Twitter. He started with a post saying “1) What” followed by a trail of cheeky ones spelling out “H-A-P-P-E-N-E-D” letter by letter over a span of two days. And subsequently, a series of explanations spread over another two days.

Understandably, dangling the carrot of confession irked many (1, 2). Especially considering CT was already baying for his blood due to the huge loss of funds and market crash caused by FTX’s collapse. “1) What” became CT’s go to phrase for WTF (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

PS. The FTX saga is discussed in Part V – Centralisation v/s Decentralisation

Yo Uhh Hmm: Another copy pasta that originated from a fallen entity. In June 2022, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) went into liquidation after failure to service loans. Ensuing lawsuit docs revealed 3AC’s chat transcripts. A few weeks before their bankruptcy filing, a creditor had requested repayment. 3AC’s COO Edward Zhao, at a loss for words, replied “Yo Uhh Hmm”. Like “1) What”, this is now slang for dismay and puzzlement (1).

(Image Source. See Page 192)

DINO: Decentralised in name only. Centralised projects that masquerade as otherwise (1).

Sweep the floor: Buying off all the NFTs of a collection listed at the lowest price (floor)

Looks Rare: When an NFT has attributes that are rare in a collection

Goblin Mode: Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2022, goblin mode is the quintessence of CT. Indulging in behaviours that defy societal expectations and disregard others' opinions. The default setting of a milady.

Whew! These should be a good starting point to a well-stocked crypto vocabulary. If you find an arcane reference outside of these or don’t get a meme, there is nothing wrong in asking. And expect a few Ligma and Deez Nuts jokes besides the helpful responses.

Disclaimer: NFA. None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.

NOTE: Also published in HackerNoon and Publish0x.

Up Next:

Part IV – Satoshi and the one true Bitcoin

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Part II – Key Opinion Makers and Cultural Influencers

The people who impact crypto culture come from multivariate backgrounds. They span geographies. Genders. Generations. Political ideologies. And social hierarchies.

They are developers, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, legal eagles, writers, traders, heads of state, art collectors, aristocrats, analysts, journalists, social activists, economists, armed force personnel, MMA fighters, media personalities and more. Crypto has also given rise to new kinds of professionals like onchain sleuths, miners, validators, smart contract auditors, NFT historians, chain archaeologists etc. who influence its culture as well.

Some of them are anonymous/pseudonymous. Some are doxed. Irrespective, their impact is based more on the merit of their work than on their identities. A few of the culturally significant people in crypto are:

Satoshi Nakamoto: The single most impactful figure in crypto. Even after 12 years since his/her/their last ever message sent to anyone. Satoshi’s work and writings continue to effect crypto culture till this day. The aura of this mythical incorruptible persona has only built up over the years. More so because the Bitcoins believed to be mined by Satoshi have never moved from their wallets. At today’s prices, they are worth close to $30 Bn. The smallest unit of a Bitcoin is called a satoshi. 1 satoshi (or, sat) = 1/100,000,000 of a BTC.

(Image Source)

Vitalik Buterin: After Satoshi, if anyone influences crypto as much now, it is Vitalik. His impact on Ethereum and thus on the larger crypto culture is undeniable. His thoughts and papers on a variety of topics, within and outside of crypto, often signal eventual crypto trends. They go on to generate further discussions, debates and developments. In March 2022, TIME Magazine featured Vitalik in a cover story calling him “the most influential person in crypto”.

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CZ (Changpeng Zhao): Founder of Binance, the largest centralised crypto exchange (Cex) by daily trading volume. Binance Chain is a blockchain that operates independent of the Cex but is part of the same brand. Before Dex’es (Decentralised Exchanges) were a thing, a Binance listing used to be on the bucket list of many projects. It was like a seal of approval for their credibility. As a result, listing announcements used to cause price jumps for their crypto tokens. Hence the phrase “WenBinance”; which follows from “WenMoon” (see Wen + word in Part III).

CZ is considered as a pioneer and a titan in crypto. The widespread use of Cex’es so far can be attributed largely to him, and to Brian Armstrong of Coinbase. While seen more as a positive influence, CZ sometimes faces critique. For things like enabling a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) development in Kazakhstan. Or for Binance’s delayed integration of Lightning Network. With US regulators going after crypto firms this year, Binance has been no exception. The CFTC filed a lawsuit in late March alleging malpractice. CZ’s usual response (apart from his official response) was “4”. This is a common memetic reference to his pinned message on Twitter (see FUD in Part III).

Cobie (Jordan Fish): A popular social media personality previously known as Crypto Cobain. Cobie is the founder of Lido Finance, a DeFi platform focused on staking crypto assets. His podcast hosts both famous and infamous guests that many times lead to hilarity. His online persona is a reflection of CT (Crypto Twitter) as a whole. Humorous commentary on current issues. Light-hearted banter. Nuanced takes on contentious topics. Irreverence for authority figures. Engaging with individuals outside of crypto to an entertaining effect.

In February of last year, Cobie had a tussle with Upwork over logo design. Soon after, he decided to assist a young crypto-skeptic artist who had been kicked off Upwork. Cobie convinced the artist to mint NFTs of their work and auction them. The ten pieces sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars as amused observers cheered on.

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Inversebrah: Stardust was a crypto trader popular for his social commentary. After a brawl with economist Nouriel Roubini in 2018, his account was suspended for a while. Stardust returned as “inversebrah” donning the role of CT’s resident historian. Inversebrah is now a  wassie; a fictitious frog-like creature that lives in the fridge. A wassie dies every two weeks to be reborn again.  Also referred to as “smolting” (i.e. small thing) or “lil shid” (i.e. little sh*t). The name “inversebrah” supposedly came from a comment that a chart (posted as a joke) was “Brah that’s inverse”.

(Image Source)

If you have ever been on CT, you will have noticed replies tagging @inversebrah. Or saying something to the effect of “get me in lil shid” asking to be part of some screenshot. People tag him to capture cringe/funny/important moments that could go down in crypto history books. His followers are fluent in wassie-speak. For years, the wassie phenomenon has even had many crypto veterans stumped. Like Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong.

The “process” for invocation of inversebrah could involve a bat signal for emergencies.

Balaji Srinivasan: Founder of Counsyl, a genetic testing company. And Earn.com, a paid-email and learning platform transacting in Bitcoin. He is also a former CTO of Coinbase, one of the earliest and largest Cex’es in the world by trading volume. Balaji writes extensively on crypto. His book, The Network State, talks about the next stage of nation states. As a tech thought leader and futurist, his predictions are regarded as prescient. Especially after he accurately foresaw how the COVID-19 pandemic would play out. As a result, “Balaji was right” is a common saying in tech and VC circles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

In March’23, Balaji made his most astounding prediction yet. He said in 90 days the US could go into hyperinflation as a fallout of the current banking crisis (see crypto’s banking problem in Part V). Thus creating a scenario for hyperbitcoinization (see 1 BTC = 1BTC in Part III). He even opened a million dollar wager at 40:1 odds for settling this “ideological matter”. However, he settled the bet early and thus marking a rare setback to the “Balaji was right” streak.

6529: Prolific NFT collector, art patron and curator. 6529 is also the founder of OM (Open Metaverse), a virtual world initiative on crypto-rails. The name “6529” comes from an NFT (CryptoPunk #6529) which he owns and uses for his public image. 6529 maintains an anonymous presence and is known for writing viral threads. Eg. on life, freedoms, security practices, bear markets, regulations, NFT and metaverse explainers, centralisation, predictions, onchain courses and more. Sometimes it’s his art purchases or memes that capture CT’s imagination.

Andreas Antonopoulos: Author and speaker. One of the OG teachers. Apart from Satoshi, it is rare for someone to have a near unanimous approval from most quarters in crypto. Antonopoulos has that rare distinction (except for maybe a few purists. See Infighting Among Crypto in Part VII). A lot of today’s crypto culture is a direct result of Antonopoulos’ speeches, books, presentations and courses red pilling people. His contributions are time and again acknowledged by today’s influencers with high regard. While he is not as active on socials now, his interviews and videos are still shared as ELI5 explainers. Besides A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto by Eric Hughes and The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous, Antonopoulos’ Mastering Bitcoin is also viewed as essential reading for crypto.

Back when Bitcoin wasn’t as big, Antonopoulos dedicated himself full-time into it. Speaking at events, consulting on Bitcoin and writing articles for free. As a result of this volunteerism, his expenses piled up and he went into debt. When he was poor shamed for this by the founder of Bitcoin Cash (a forked version of Bitcoin), Bitcoiners took the insult personally. Within days, donations worth millions of dollars had poured into Antonopoulos’ Bitcoin wallet.

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Looking for some more people to follow? Here are a 100 culturally relevant crypto personalities in no particular order:

Buidlers: The Late Hal Finney, Adam Back, Jack Dorsey, Brian Armstrong, Hayden Adams, Elizabeth Stark, Stani Kulechov, Jameson Lopp, Erik Voorhees, Hudson Jameson, Kevin Owocki, banteg, Sergey Nazarov, Emin Gün Sirer, Sandeep Nailwal, Samson Mow, Taylor Monahan, Alex Svanevik, Eli Ben-Sasson, Kathleen Breitman, Péter Szilágyi, Jesse Powell, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, Obi Nwosu, Sreeram Kannan, Pieter Wuille, Devin Finzer, Dom Hofmann, Roham Gharegozlou, Snowfro/Erick Calderon, statelayer

Teachers: Lyn Alden Schwartzer, Anthony Sassano, Peter McCormack, hodlonaut, Ryan Sean Adams, Nic Carter, Anita Posch, Laura Shin, Troy Cross, Maya Zehavi, Matthew Green, Hasu, Ari David Paul, Angie Jones, Nader Dabit, tier10k, Preethi Kasireddy, dystopiabreaker, Adam Cochran, Ryan Selkis, Dylan LeClair, Eric Wall, Laurence Day, 0xfoobar

Artists: beeple/Mike Winkelmann, pplpleasr/Emily Yang, SHL0MS, 3LAU/Justin David Blau, Cath Simard, Jen Stark, FEWOCiOUS/Victor Langlois, XCOPY, SeerLight/Ronald Kuang, Tyler Hobbs, DeeKay Kwon, John Knopf, Pussy Riot, Seneca, Refik Anadol, Micah Johnson, Drifter Shoots/Isaac Wright, Murat Pak

Investors: Naval Ravikant, Michael Saylor, Meltem Demirors, Cathie Wood, Marc Andreessen, Alexis Ohanian, Gary Vaynerchuk, Linda Xie, Chris Dixon, Sriram Krishnan, Fred Ehrsam, Avichal Garg, Mike Dudas

Art Collectors: Cozomo de' Medici/Snoop Dogg(?), Vincent Van Dough, Bharat Krymo

Policy Experts: Caitlin Long, Neeraj Agrawal, Hester Peirce, Jake Chervinsky

Entertainers: kmoney, Sheikh Roberto, Gabriel Haines

Security Specialists: ZachXBT, Samczsun, CIA Officer

Traders: Arthur Hayes

Neither is the list and nor are the categories exhaustive. And many of those mentioned above can qualify for multiple categories.

PS. If you choose to follow them on Twitter, please watch out for spambots and scammers. Crypto accounts are some of the most common subjects of impersonation. With Vitalik and CZ being top choices (apart from Elon Musk).

Disclaimer: None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.

NOTE: Also published in HackerNoon and Publish0x.

Up Next:

Part III – Lexicon and Memes

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If you think about it though, all cultures and subcultures develop their own lingo. They create their own customs and rituals. Social behaviours. In-groups and out-groups. Sub-communities. Idiosyncrasies And so on. These subcultures are born out of political, technological, art or other contemporary movements. Influences which also shape their vocabulary. For example, a combination of politics, economics, cryptography, computer science and current affairs influenced Bitcoin’s creation. As a result, its culture and diction are also influenced by these.

Subcultures can be niche like Goth or Steampunk. Or more popular cultural phenomena like Hip Hop. The Furry fandom falls somewhere between. And so does cryptocurrencies, or crypto – not niche anymore, not a mass movement yet. But getting there.

People more competent than me have written at length trying to explain the who, what, why and how of this movement. The most recently popular of them being a 40,000 word treatise by finance columnist Matt Levine. In spite of all the ink spent on crypto, its culture remains one of  lesser explored aspects in popular media. With this guide, I hope to take a stab at it in fewer words than Levine.

For semantic clarity, “crypto” originally used to refer to cryptography only. Cryptocurrencies use applications of cryptography. With their growing popularity, “crypto” is also now common parlance for cryptocurrency-related stuff. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum, public blockchains, NFTs and more. I will be referring to the newer connotation when using “crypto” here.

Now coming back to the original question, do the terms mentioned above sound familiar? If you are into crypto, it is a resounding yes. If you dislike crypto, these phrases may invoke negative sentiments. But if you are unaware or indifferent to them, you may be a nocoiner. Or a precoiner to be more specific.

What is a nocoiner? Someone who doesn’t own any cryptocurrency or related assets like NFTs. As with many things in crypto, “nocoiner” has turned out to be contentious. Even among crypto advocates (1, 2). Urban Dictionary currently lists five explanations. All have polarized votes. Two of those are disparaging of people who like cryptocurrencies. The other three downtalk critics. Wiktionary has two definitions of which the first one says:

Elsewhere, there is resentment added towards crypto in the description of the term. From VICE, to CoinDesk to CoinMarketCap, to Wiktionary’s second definition. What of those who are unconcerned one way or the other? Entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan makes this distinction. He suggests “precoiner” i.e. a nocoiner who has no grudges against crypto.

As Matt Levine’s “Crypto Story” points out, “disciples” (coiners) and “skeptics” (anticoiners) are at loggerheads. “Normies” (precoiners) are undecided. Hence this guide may find a more receptive audience among precoiners. Nonetheless, it is addressed to all nocoiners. All who wish to peek into the layered and esoteric world of crypto culture.

Part I – Bitcoin v/s Ethereum (and Other Crypto) Culture

To understand the overall culture, let’s list some of the shared principles among Bitcoin/Ethereum/crypto/public blockchain/Web3 proponents to begin with:

·         trustlessness, decentralisation, disintermediation

·         self-sovereignty, ownership rights, be-your-own-bank

·         individual privacy, data protection, strong cryptography

·         censorship-resistance, freedom to transact, immutability

·         triple entry accounting, public accountability of systems, FOSS

Many of these values can be attributed to libertarian thought and anti-establishment sentiment born out of socio-political developments. The earliest supporters of some of these values were cypherpunks – a privacy-focused subculture. Naturally, crypto found acceptance from whistleblowers. Like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Frances Haugen. Thereby starting its life as a niche internet counterculture.

Over time, some chains/projects/platforms in crypto have made concessions for one value in exchange for other benefits/value systems hoping to gain more mass appeal. Trade-offs such as compromising on decentralisation for achieving speed. Or shelving open source to avoid exploits. Or even ditching immutability to curry favours with governments. Nevertheless, some crypto entities have held on to their cypherpunk roots zealously.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin was born out of the 2008 housing bubble collapse. Its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s goal was to make a system that no longer needs a trusted intermediary to transact. A truly peer-to-peer financial paradigm. Publicly auditable. Run on computers by independent parties distributed around the world. Cannot be corrupted by colluding actors. In the words of Satoshi:

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This is why Bitcoin culture focuses so much on separation of money from state. The ethos of Fix The Money, Fix The World resonates strongly. The memetic themes often revolve around sound money, borderless finance and economic theory. Throwing shade at censorship, central banking, fiat money and government-issued diktat, is usual. This mission-driven doggedness is one of the reasons for Bitcoin’s resilience through “crypto winters”. In spite of its obituaries being written over and over again.

(Image Souce)

Many years later, the vibes are still cypherpunk AF. There’s vigorous advocacy for free speech, privacy, anti-surveillance, and cybersecurity. Self-custody of assets is sacrosanct. Keeping crypto coins on centralised/custodial platforms is a no-no. Many prominent Bitcoiners are generally skeptical of the overall (non-Bitcoin) crypto space. But staying true to their roots, they protest EU’s plan to ban privacy coins. And come to the defence of Tornado Cash when it is sanctioned by the US Treasury and one of its developers is arrested.

OPSEC (operations security) is second nature. And it comes from years of experience. Sometimes learning the hard way like a Solana dev did last year in Bogotá. As security expert Jameson Lopp can also confirm. While glitzy events like the Miami Bitcoin Conference or Bitcoin Amsterdam attract people from across the cryptocurrency spectrum and beyond, the true essence of Bitcoin culture shows in smaller developer-focused events:

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Products, research, activism and other developmental work on Bitcoin centre around custody, scalability, anti-censorship, uptime, privacy, accessibility, circular economies, nation state adoption, power grids, renewable energy, human rights, offline payments etc.

Popular crypto developments like DeFi (Decentralised Finance), NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), Yield Farms, ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), DApps (Decentralised Applications), DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), tokens etc. are nearly non-existent on Bitcoin. Even things like Dex’es (Decentralised Exchanges) are few and far between. People who invest in these “altcoin” projects or associate with them may face criticism from Bitcoin purists.

The idea that public blockchains can be viable means to build anything beyond money rails is not well received in these circles (see Oracle Problem in Part V). So there is disinterest in “Web3” and “metaverse”. There are attempts at ideations and implementations of tokens, DApps, NFTs and more on or around Bitcoin too (see Colored Coins, Counterparty, Inscriptions / Ordinals, Bitcoin Stamps, OpenOrdex, Rollkit, Mastercoin / Omni, EthSide, Raretoshi, BitDNS / Namecoin, VeriBlock etc), but they have never really taken off. This indifference, and occasional disdain (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)*, makes Bitcoin culture feel puritanical and over-serious. Yet, at the same time, it has paved the way for what is considered as crypto culture today. In times of crisis, the single-minded pursuit of Bitcoin gains greater appreciation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) from altcoiners / multicoiners too.

*Despite the disdain, Bitcoiners have overwhelmingly rejected calls for censorship and throttling of undesirables (see Bitcoin-not-crypto in Part VII).

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PS. Eric Wall is a vocal critic of “maximalism” in Bitcoin spaces. In the dorky v/s dogmatic image composite above, the left one is from Ethereum’s developer conference in Bogotá. The right one is from Bitcoin’s community-focused conference in Amsterdam. To be fair, the Bitcoin event had other non-ominous-looking settings too (see here and here).

Ethereum: One of the original proposers of Colored Coins was Vitalik Buterin. A co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. He wanted to build apps and blockchain-based assets on top of Bitcoin. A decentralised world computer using Bitcoin. That did not generate enough interest from other Bitcoin devs. So he ventured out to create a separate blockchain called Ethereum. A permissionless platform to deploy software applications and digital assets.

Apart from the proceeds of a Thiel Fellowship, an initial sale of premined coins was arranged to fund early development. This led to differences with the Bitcoin community since Satoshi’s approach was more bootstrapped. Another point of contention was Bitcoin had no premine and mining was egalitarian. No added advantage afforded to Satoshi or other early miners. To play devil’s advocate though, it could be argued that Satoshi’s Bitcoin mailing list was a high privilege that few had access to. Notwithstanding, the first cracks began to appear between the two communities.

From cryptography research to scaling to data protection to improving decentralisation, Ethereum developers and researchers have their hands full. Ethereum is more “degen” (degenerate) though in the sense that it houses all those endeavours mentioned before that don’t catch on in Bitcoin. Apart from finance, it is fertile grounds for experimenting with non-money implementations in art, governance, grants, arbitration, community management, fundraising, revenue sharing, treasury administration, co-working, fan clubs, insurance, VR/metaverse, publishing, gaming, royalties, identities, ticketing etc. Even cloud nations are not exempt. As a result, Ethereum’s culture, memes, lexicon capture these various pursuits and their hits and misses. The themes go beyond money and state.

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The ballooning thesaurus of crypto-speak reflects the pace of development on Ethereum. As of Jan’23, ~1M different tokens have been issued on its blockchain. Of these, ~760k are fungible tokens (ERC20 tokens), ~205k are NFT collections (ERC721 tokens) and ~35k are other kinds of tokens (ERC1155 tokens). And we have not even included the 1:1 NFTs such as single pieces of work created by artists. On top of this, more than 44M smart contracts have been deployed (as of Aug’22). This high level of enterprise is a driver of the “Web3” movement. A loosely held term for an internet running on public blockchain and crypto token rails to maintain data provenance.

On the flip side, where there’s money to be made, there is sketchy activity too. Apart from projects that fail, there are also scams perpetrated by bad actors. From vaporware, to snake oil, to rug pulls, to hacks, to malicious contracts. Many of these get flagged quickly (see Bane of Scams in Crypto in Part VIII). Their claims get called out (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). Or clowned on (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). But many slip through. For every Uniswap, Aave, Compound, MakerDAO’s of the world, there are many grifts that happen. A large part of criticism directed towards crypto arises from these misadventures. One of the reasons why Bitcoin purists insist on distancing from “crypto”.

Notwithstanding “degen” behaviour on Ethereum, cypherpunk tendencies are alive and well. There are tools to subvert authority. NFTs to free Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. And DAOs seeking release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. So Bitcoin now has a partner in Ethereum when it comes to driving crypto culture.

Other public blockchains like Solana, Dogecoin, Polygon, Avalanche, Cosmos, Binance, Monero, Zcash, Litecoin, Polkadot, Stacks, Tron, Near, Cardano etc. have a comparatively smaller footprint on cultural phenomena for now. Because of its dominant influence, many Ethereum developments (NFTs, Dex’es, DAO’s, stablecoins etc.) become part of the crypto zeitgeist before other chains adopt them. This is why a lot of lexicon and memetic themes carry over from Ethereum as well.

Disclaimer: None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.

NOTE: Also published in HackerNoon and Publish0x.

Up Next:

Part II – Key People/Opinion Makers/Cultural Influencers

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What is clear right now is that Alameda had siphoned customer funds from FTX to make big bets that didn’t go as planned. Investigating agencies are currently looking into the details of the case. And building a prosecution.

Had it not been for CT (Crypto Twitter) though, many of these details may not have seen the light of day. Or as quickly as they did. For months SBF had antagonised crypto OGs by talking down Bitcoin and lobbying against DeFi (Decentralised Finance). His personal branding focused marketing campaigns were deemed unbecoming as well.

Big media puff pieces on SBF were in stark contrast to how Binance’s Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Coinbase’ Brian Armstrong or Kraken’s Jesse Powell were often treated in news stories. Media wasn’t usually kind to crypto personalities, much less publish hagiographies (1, 2) about them.

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SBF made frequent appearances in Capitol visits, Senate hearings, regulator roundtables. A privilege not afforded to many others in crypto. Something just didn’t seem right but CT couldn’t put a finger on it. Here was a relative newcomer who was suddenly being thrust as crypto’s poster child in media and political circles. There was growing uneasiness among crypto natives with a self-appointed spokesperson whose stances were quite opposite of core crypto ethos. It was CoinDesk’s scoop on holes in Alameda’s balance sheet that broke the camel’s back. SBF/FTX/Alameda came crashing down soon after.

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Details of billions in fraud and trading losses came to the fore and grabbed major headlines worldwide. Scandalous leaks revealed long-running drug abuse, polycule relationships and ethical malpractices. Unbeknownst to many though, there was another dramatic subplot that had played out in parallel. One that will make for an even more entertaining retelling of the fall of FTX. A sequence of events that can be speculatively pieced together into a side story of revenge and retribution. A story that has many similarities to the 1988 Bollywood classic Khoon Bhari Maang. This is that story.

Act I: Sanjay wrongs Aarti

Sanjay, who has recently arrived in India, makes acquaintance of a rich woman, Aarti. He feigns romantic interest and gains her confidence. With a plan to inherit her wealth, Sanjay pushes Aarti into crocodile-infested waters.

Mid-2019: A young gifted trader named SBF starts FTX, a derivatives exchange. As a relatively new kid on the block, SBF seeks funding and liquidity for FTX and reaches out to investors. Sometime later, reports of an attack on Binance's futures platform emerge. The identity of the attacker becomes a subject of speculation. CZ indicates he might know who it could be but doesn’t disclose it and seems to move on.

Act II: Aarti befriends Sanjay

Aarti returns in disguise and befriends Sanjay who is now indulging in his ill-gotten fortune.

Late-2019: Binance makes an investment in FTX and its native token $FTT.

2020 - 2022: SBF becomes the blue-eyed boy of media and politics as he goes about courting regulators, buying up luxury properties and private jets and splurging millions on sponsorships, advertisements, events and political donations.

Act III: Aarti's revenge

Aarti goes after Sanjay’s accomplices, some of whom turn against him. In a final act of poetic justice, Aarti knocks Sanjay into the same waters and looks on as he gets ripped apart by crocodiles.

Late-2022: CoinDesk breaks the news that Alameda may be insolvent. Days later, CZ announces plans to liquidate Binance’s massive $FTT position. Alameda tries to unsuccessfully negotiate a rescue plan and ends up adding fuel to the fire that FTX and related parties may be toast. Thereafter FTX halts withdrawals, $FTT crashes and Alameda’s site goes private.

This is closely followed by SBF’s resignation, FTX/Alameda’s bankruptcy filings, freezing of assets, allegations of fraudulent practices, culminating in his arrest. Subsequently his partners turn against him. Days before disaster SBF had gloated about his access to American politics while taunting CZ. In a twist of fate, he now finds himself extradited to the US to stand trial and for further investigation by federal agencies.

The End

NOTE: This piece is derived from my tweet thread on the same theme.

Disclaimer: None of the information mentioned above should be construed as financial advice.

https://embed.0xecho.com.ipns.page?color-theme=dark&desc=&has-h-padding=true&has-v-padding=true&modules=comment%2Cdislike%2Ctip%2Clike&receiver=abhijoysarkar.eth&target_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fabhijoysarkar.mirror.xyz%2F0JDYZWwTUPRCA-8z5sJplQISYkPOLQJ08gM5SfDT78k&height=800&display=iframe

During the tragic terrorist attacks on Christchurch mosques back in 2019, the attacker was live streaming as he went about his killing spree. While the massacre was ongoing and many hours afterwards, those heinous videos kept surfacing on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and other social media. Moderators on those platforms struggled to keep up. It became a game of cat and mouse with normal users scrambling to report posts that showed up so that moderators could review and remove them quickly.

It goes without saying that moderators go through disturbing experiences like these day in and day out so that we don’t have to. Their work ensures that vile content stays off the internet. Stuff that often involves unspeakable human cruelty – from violent extremism, to murder, to animal torture, to child abuse, to rape, to self-harm, to hate speech, to terrorist propaganda and so on. Sometimes, it’s intentional shock material like Elsagate or graphic pornography. At other times, it’s straight up illegal affairs such as contraband solicitation. A moderator interviewed by VICE last year estimates 5-10% of what they see through the course of their work is potentially traumatising.

What does a Moderator do exactly?

Media and Tech companies, especially those that allow user generated media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Telegram etc. have community standards which are usually based on common sense principles and statutory law. In order to ensure that content posted on their platforms follow the guidelines, these companies employ AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning) algorithms to automatically filter out objectionable matter. Things that slip through the cracks go over to a moderator (or mod) queue for manual review.

A mod’s designation can vary from community mod to process executive to content manager to legal removals associate etc. They can operate proactively if they detect questionable content or reactively in response to a report by a user. Based on their assessment, they can choose to keep, remove or escalate the flagged material to higher ups. Escalations happen for grey areas such as a political matter. A user can also be temporarily suspended or permanently banned from the platform based on their actions. Some companies additionally have steps in place where mods can report a user to the police.

Third party contract workers receive anywhere between $1/hour to $15/hour while directly employed moderators get better pay for this work. But the psychological trauma from reviewing 2000 flagged photos/hour or 400 reported posts/day and the resulting stress of maintaining a high accuracy score is the same for all. Many of these moderators develop long term mental health disorders such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and chronic anxiety as a result of prolonged exposure to the worst possible content.

To share some personal experience, as a community manager for various cryptocurrency projects, I have come across a variety of objectionable material in Telegram channels, Discord servers and chat forums – from racist jibes to drug peddling to CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) solicitation. Actions have ranged from permanent bans to reporting the matter to the FBI. Each of those incidents have been distressing to say the least.

Where do games come in all of this?

Games and social media have always been intersectional in the form of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) such as World of Warcraft, RuneScape, League of Legends, Clash of Clans, Eve Online or Battle Royale games like Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty, Apex Legends or even other online multiplayer games such as Among Us, Minecraft, Pokemon Go, FarmVille etc. Players interact with each other through in-game channels, Discord servers, chat rooms, Twitch etc. over text, audio, video and file transfers.

So, game moderators (or gamemasters) face similar challenges as above when handling these forums. There are fewer instances of heinous content in gaming forums compared to social media however. Instead, moderators here have to focus more on issues such as harassment, spam, trolling, cheating, bullying and ensuring that game rules are not broken. Because of the competitive nature of games, these channels of communication could turn heated leaving mods with their hands full and on their toes. Moderators may be employed by publishers/developers or volunteers from the community with high trust scores.

What are the legal implications of moderation?

In the 90’s, the early days of the internet, there was widespread mass scare that the web would lead to spread of pornography and the resulting promiscuity would destroy social fabric. Media reports would use all kinds of names such as calling the internet a “global computer hookup”. The fear mongering got to a stage where rationalists had to counter repeated calls for censoring the internet.

Subsequently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was ratified. This gave protection to platforms from the liability of publishers and the immunity to be able to remove bad content under the “Good Samaritan Clause”. This landmark law allowed the internet to grow to its size and form we see today. This is also what offers protection to moderators to go on about their jobs without fear of reprisal from affected parties.

As games and social interactions move onto metaverses (more on that later), the same law will protect mods who “police” these realms to filter out bad behaviour. However, there will be higher complexity of interactions in these settings, requiring new sets of guidelines for mods to operate. Just for an example, there could be instances of groping or stalking in the metaverse which requires a moderator to step in and take corrective action. Without clear SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), moderators could remain second guessing on taking a decisive measure.

Wait, but what is a metaverse?

Metaverse is a loosely held term that is usually meant to describe a shared immersive virtual realm that some envision as the future of internet. This was largely a topic of science fiction until the advent of provably ownable digital assets in the form of cryptocurrencies and NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens). The closest precursors of a true metaverse experience would be various game worlds. However, traditional gaming communities and studios have been wary of crypto and its associated technologies so far. As a result, crypto-native companies like Decentraland and The Sandbox have spawned metaverse-like worlds where users can own assets (both portable and non-portable). Experiences in metaverses can range from visiting art exhibits, attending music festivals, playing games and much more.

It should be noted that while various traditional game developers have expressed concerns around portability (read here and here) from a gameplay perspective, Web3 developers consider portability from an asset ownership perspective. This is a fundamental disconnect between two differing points-of-view. I explored the crypto-native outlook of metaverses in an interview last year. One thing that both sides might agree on is that “land” in the metaverse should be limitless. The promise of true permissionless, decentralised realms should also include infinite scalability. Open Metaverse by crypto thought leader 6529 is an attempt to create an infinite metaverse where one can jump from realm to realm inside the metaverse while retaining ownership and use of their assets. As the website mentions, “Space is abundant in metaverse”.

Facebook’s much publicised recent transition to Meta is focused around building its own metaverse as well. Imran Ahmed, CEO of Centre for Countering Digital Hate, says that Facebook’s move “was an inevitable next step in the evolution of social media. Allowing the virtual physical presence of the people that you’re connected to from around the world to you”. It is unclear whether Meta will incorporate the ethos of crypto (decentralised, permissionless, self-custody) or build a walled garden with its own digital assets and wallet architecture instead.

But if recent developments at Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Shopify, Stripe, eBay and many other companies are an indication, NFTs, cryptocurrencies, blockchains, Web3 and all that comes along with them are inevitable. Instances of game studios nixing existing digital context (assets, score, progress etc) continue to make the case for Web3 developments. However, as some critics have pointed out, it is important to keep in mind the vectors of bad behaviour in a world where blockchains can play a large role.

This is where moderators will come in. A metaverse mod will have a completely different experience from existing media i.e. text, images, video, sound, files etc. In a metaverse, in addition to the above media, there will be avatars mimicking human actions and using digital assets to extend those behaviours which will also need moderation. It will be as real as it gets to the meatspace police trying to maintain civility and keeping the bad apples in check. Moderators will have their work cut out in a new paradigm.

Employers, on their part, will have to ensure that this work is not only suitably rewarded but the mental well being of those involved is also taken care of. Social media has already given an idea of the toll it takes on mods. This new iteration of social experience should not fail them as they strive to uphold the sanctity of metaverses for the rest of us.

Disclosure: The author has no vested interest in any of the projects mentioned in this article. No information from the article should be construed as financial advice.

Other References:

1. Something strange is happening on Youtube #ElsaGate (The Outer Light):

   

2. Who Moderates the Social Media Giants? A Call to End Outsourcing | Paul M. Barrett:

   https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/tech-content-moderation-june-2020

3. Runescape Population Avg by Qtr Hour:

   https://www.misplaceditems.com/rs_tools/graph/

4. TIME Magazine Cover: Cyber Porn | July 3, 1995:

   http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19950703,00.html

5. Is Everything in Crypto a Scam? (VICE News):

   

6. Meta - Facebook Connect 2021 Presentation:

   https://www.facebook.com/Meta/videos/facebook-connect-2021/577658430179350/

This article was originally published on 27th June, 2022 in HackerNoon. Reposting it here to keep a permanent record of this piece on Mirror.

Sir, congratulations again on the work anniversary! Privileged to have taken your course, Prof. Thank you. You taught us to read more and explore with an open mind. Over the last few years, I have tried to do just that. And it has led me to the wonderful world of Web3. Hence, after reading your opinion piece about cryptocurrencies, I felt slightly troubled. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with some of the views stated there. Full Disclosure: I am an advisor for several crypto projects. I also moderate/manage communities for many. Plus, I write for multiple projects as well. Currently, I am also looking at becoming a member in several DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Please bear with me as I share some counter arguments.

But first, some personal background on my crypto journey:

I have been curious about cryptos since 2011 but had never delved too deeply into it until 2017. Passed on the opportunity to buy BTC (in 2011) and ETH (in 2014). But finally dived head first in Dec’17 during the ICO frenzy. To be fair, I started off in crypto hoping for a windfall from my meager investment. Before putting in money, all I did was a casual reading about how prices were skyrocketing and how it was all "up-only" from there. I agree with your observation that the FOMO is played up. Most of the rational people in crypto hold a similar opinion:

https://twitter.com/peter_szilagyi/status/1469397388251082753

Péter is a developer at Ethereum Foundation. "CT" means Crypto Twitter.

The media plays its fair share in hyping this up as well. You will see near zero reporting on the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade or Ethereum's ERC-1155 standard or Stacks introducing microblocks or how Chainalysis reads blockchain data to track criminal behavior (also, thanks to crypto this kind of tracking is now possible. Anyone can do it with some experience). But there will be multitudes of reports on how a random memecoin is now 1732487263948% up or that some 17-year old is now a zillionaire from their crypto exploits.

Anyways, I am straying away from the topic. After I got in, the markets crashed in 2018. For a few days I was despondent and considered taking the loss and moving on since crypto was nothing but a speculative asset for me thus far. But then, I took a second glance. This was a boon in disguise since it allowed me an opportunity to dig deep and study what cryptos really entailed. For the first time, I peeked behind the price and trading curtains to research and dive into the rabbit hole for a couple of years.

I have turned from a skeptic to a cautious optimist ever since. And to be clear, I have never partaken in speculative trades since 2017 except for a couple of failed attempts back then; all of which resulted in losses. What I have done since then is buy (not trade) small amounts from time to time. Sometimes, in order to test out a new DApp (Decentralized App) or a DeFi (Decentralized Finance) protocol or to set up an NFT (Non Fungible Token) gallery etc. Most of my experimentations in crypto are around what are now commonly referred to as Web3 technologies. For example, here’s my NFT gallery:

https://www.cyber.xyz/abhijoysarkar

A few points about the opinion piece:

• The government’s stance has actually changed from its original position very recently. If latest reports are to be believed there will be no prohibition on "...holding, selling, or dealing" in crypto. What has stayed constant so far is the restriction of crypto's usage as a currency which most of the crypto ecosystem complies with anyways. It is being reported that the Bill may be renamed to refer to cryptos as "cryptoassets" instead of "cryptocurrencies". This could be to avoid confusion arising from the semantics of “currency”. The Finance Minister has talked about how the Bill had to be "reworked":

  https://www.ndtv.com/business/what-finance-minister-said-today-on-crypto-concerns-5-points-2630398

  Some additional details apart from the FM’s address were also reported:

  https://twitter.com/ndtv/status/1466393616130220034

However, since some of the reporting is based on sources/hearsay, a few of the points seem to be incorrect:

https://twitter.com/SarkarAbhijoy/status/1466813462722625537

Anyways, the final details of the Bill are yet to be made public. There are far too many instances of misreporting on crypto matters. This has resulted in confused understanding and literature:

https://twitter.com/sarkarabhijoy/status/1363011446674763776

We should hold our newsmakers to a higher standard. Here's an example of a person of influence from traditional finance media strongly arguing for blockchain-not-crypto (more on that below) and having the opinion that Ethereum is not a blockchain:

https://twitter.com/ETNOWlive/status/1461384435585060865

This was painful to watch for most of us in crypto.

• As you have rightly pointed out, CBDC, which is effectively digital fiat, is not an alternative to crypto. Crypto is a settlement/incentive/security mechanism for public blockchains (i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stacks etc). A public blockchain allows anyone (i.e. the public) to become a node/validator/miner to verify transactions and secure the chain through various commitments which could involve computation i.e. Proof-of-Work (PoW), time locking of funds i.e. Proof-of-Stake (PoS), sacrificing assets i.e. Proof-of-Transfer (PoX) etc. In return for this service, the validators/node operators/miners/etc. get rewarded a token (i.e. the respective crypto of that chain - BTC/ETH/STX/etc). And all of this activity happens algorithmically outside of centralized control or singular point of governance.

  The semantics of crypto being a "currency" arises more from this reward mechanism and less from the nature of their transactions or usage. The transactions on these chains can range anywhere from deploying a smart contract to playing a game to minting an NFT to storing files and so on. Financial settlements form one part of this whole gamut of operations. CBDCs, on the other hand, will be run on private permissioned blockchains purely for fiat settlements. Private chains have no incentives for public node participation. Hence, they are also referred to as centralized chains. CBDCs serve a completely different purpose than crypto. This also often segues into a misleading blockchain-good-crypto-bad argument. But cursory reading on this should clear doubts on why this is misleading:

  https://twitter.com/SarkarAbhijoy/status/1140147273340354561

Contrary to CBDC, major changes to public blockchains also happen through shared consensus. The latest on display was the activation for Taproot on Bitcoin which saw developers in favor of the change publicly urging miners to signal support for the upgrade in the blocks they mined. I watched as it happened in real time as blocks with support signaling flags got mined one after the other by miners across the world over the course of several weeks:

https://twitter.com/mutatrum/status/1403702189563039751

• Comparing Bitcoin's TPS (transactions per second) to Visa is a little unfair. The Bitcoin blockchain is the base layer or layer 1 of the protocol. This base layer settles transactions with finality in ~10 minutes (i.e. block confirmation time). A Visa transaction's actual money settlement (i.e. base layer) with finality takes days. The instant merchant confirmation or Visa is like a layer 3, 4 or 5 of money. Consequently, Visa is comparable to Lightning Network (i.e. layer 2) which is one of the scaling solutions on Bitcoin. Like Visa, Lightning does near-instant confirmations. El Salvador's Bitcoin implementation is making use of Lightning. And, I am not even getting started with all the altcoins which claim higher/at-par TPS (with finality) with Visa such as Ripple, Harmony, Solana, Avalanche etc.

• When it comes to transaction fees, Lightning transactions cost fractions of a cent. But even if we consider base layer transaction fees, an average Bitcoin transaction costs less than Visa's interchange fees even when the network is choc-a-bloc:

  https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/78070/blockchain-vs-banks-which-one-has-more-affordable-transaction-fees

Interchange fees are percentage-based. Bitcoin's transaction fees are not. Hence, even many billions of dollars’ worth of funds can also be moved while costing <10 USD for fees. Exhibit:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/b36bced99cc459506ad2b3af6990920b12f6dc84f9c7ed0dd2c3703f94a4b692

And once again, I am not even mentioning altcoins where base layer transactions can cost just cents.

• There is definitely a lot of irrational exuberance as mentioned in your article. But the leader-follower example holds true for all speculative tradable instruments. So isolating crypto as a strawman when the same could apply to other asset classes seems unjust, volatility notwithstanding. Traders/investors speculate on the value of the token for the underlying chain/network and the applications/partnerships/utilities being built around them. This value is backed up by real effort and resources being spent on securing these chains by nodes/validators/miners/etc. Polygon, for example, is an Indian project that is building scalability solutions for Ethereum. It is used by many applications for fast confirmations. Exhibit of activity on Polygon:

  https://twitter.com/joel_john95/status/1471460090301407242

  Someone who is bullish on Ethereum and also expecting the Polygon network to grow by this association will bet on MATIC (Polygon's native token). Speculative frenzy or not, people see value being created by these networks.

• Multiple studies have shown that the role of crypto in crime is: a) decreasing, b) nowhere near fiat in terms of volume. It is a fraction of a fraction. Many of these reports are cited in the following pieces:

  https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/

https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-crypto-crime-report-intro-ransomware-scams-darknet-markets/

https://blog.coinbase.com/fact-check-crypto-is-increasingly-being-used-for-criminal-activity-and-is-a-haven-for-illicit-856a71dfb399

Crimes of similar nature committed with fiat often require months of investigation, whistleblowing and cross-examination by auditing firms to get caught. In crypto, it’s all on-chain. Suspicious transactions get noticed in real time. In fact, my thesis is, crypto crimes get so much focus only because they get flagged quickly and without fail. Law enforcement agencies regularly use services of firms like Elliptic and Chainalysis to trace unlawful activity.

So where do we go from here:

Recently, there were 2 major public hearings in the US focused on cryptos. One was largely pro-crypto:

And the other was largely anti-crypto:

I think we need to start having more nuanced conversations like these beyond the standard price volatility/currency criticism. Yes, crypto looks confusing and doesn't fit into existing frames of reference. It is a new realm for many. I have tried to make sense of some of the buzzwords like “Web3” and “metaverses” here:

https://hackernoon.com/enter-the-metaverse-v2021

If policy-level discussions and hearings in the US are any indication on where we are heading, it seems to be towards level-headed pragmatic regulations. This is what all rational crypto people are OK with and have been asking for years. So I feel there is a real opportunity here in India as well to engage in good faith with the crypto community and what better way than to have one of my favorite Profs along the journey.

PS. I am not sure how many people from my alma mater are still reading this, but if you want to chat more on this, I am @abhijoysarkar on Telegram and @sarkarabhijoy on Twitter. Alternatively, we also have a dedicated crypto WhatsApp group for the Institute. Send me a DM on Telegram/Twitter and I'll add you there. It is only for the Institute’s students, alumni, teachers and associated personnel though. As a principle, we try to discourage speculative price discussions there as much as possible.

PPS. We have only scratched the surface of crypto critique above. There are even more talking points on energy usage, breaking encryption, ransomware, terrorism funding, dangers of immutability, political ideology, schools of economic thought (Austrian v/s Keynesian), whether blockchains are a solution looking for a problem, blocksize wars, risk of centralization and so much more. Each topic brings along its own set of discussions, history, solutions, counter arguments, retorts and so on. If anyone wants to go on that tangent and exchange thoughts, feel free to reach out on Twitter/Telegram.

PPPS. For anybody wondering why I have left out references to my Professor or the link to his opinion piece, crypto is sometimes adversarial and some folks get emotional because they have skin-in-the-game. I am showing my Professor an application of crypto (Arweave storage for Mirror blogposts) while trying to keep the crazies (if any) at bay.

Ever watched Ready Player One and wondered what it would be like to have the same thing in real life (well you know what we mean)? Play around a virtual casino, explore online megastructures, party at a metaverse club, race digital collectible cars with friends from around the world – all from the comfort of your couch. Well there’s always Minecraft, Roblox and Second Life. So, what’s missing?

The names mentioned are run on permissioned systems and can be turned off at the flick of a switch. There is little that participants can do if that happens. In spite of the open sandbox nature of these games, players are often governed by policies in which they play no part for the decision-making process. Plus, financial transactions (or micro-transactions) in these games are neither immutable nor integrated into the gameplay with real world finance.

What we need is the assurance of an unstoppable game engine backed by decentralised governance and topped up with the immersive experience of on-chain transactions through seamless wallet interactions. So is there a permission-less Ready Player One experience with gamified finance available right now? My co-author Rohit and I set out to find out exactly this. And we found that there are some projects that are already building trust-less metaverses – Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, The Sandbox etc. The oldest and most intricate among these yet is Decentraland.

The past few weeks have been crazy in the real world with Elon Musk pumping $DOGE memes, Tesla announcing their Bitcoin investment and r/wallstreetbets one-upping Wall Street vis-à-vis $GME, $AMC et al. But Rohit and I discovered crazier experiences in the virtual world called Decentraland. Here are some of the funnest things we found in there:

Decentral Games

One of the opening shots in Ready Player One was that of “a casino the size of a planet” in OASIS. In Decentraland, you are spoilt for choice. There are multiple casinos in the Vegas City District run by Decentral Games – the first social metaverse casino where anyone can be the house.

There are currently 3 operational venues where you can try your luck viz. Chateau Satoshi (-75, 77), Tominoya (-119, 133) and Serenity Island (-145, 115). Early disclaimer for anyone trying it out: you can play in Decentral Games only if your physical jurisdiction allows gambling.

Decentral Games is owned by its users who participate in decision-making by staking $DG, its native token. Even the treasury decisions are taken through user-voting in the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). The DAO currently holds millions of dollars’ worth of assets in LAND parcels, NFTs and $DG in its community wallet.

The community can create and vote on proposals to build casinos, games, art galleries etc. using these funds. $DG is earned by playing games with $MANA and $DAI (also referred to as gameplay mining), through liquidity farming and from governance rewards.

Launched in 2019, the project is backed by Digital Currency Group, Cluster Capital, Hiraku etc. Currently, one can play blackjack, roulette, slots and backgammon in there. The next game to be launched is Texas hold ‘em poker, and then Baccarat later.

Apart from standalone games, the casinos also host events like NFT auctions and casino night parties. We missed attending the latest NFT auction which saw an Elon Musk-featured artwork sell for 10+ ETH. Ethereum chain bottlenecks are avoided since transactions are executed on the Matic sidechain and any gas fees are covered by Decentral Games itself. So, players don’t need to worry about gas or block confirmation delays.

We caught up with Decentral Games’ founder and project lead Miles Anthony to chat on the user metrics. He said, “On a typical event day, we have about 300 players playing both free-to-play games and also games played with $MANA and $DAI. The total bets have exceeded USD 20 million since launch and we are scaling the platform to accommodate the demands….we are definitely seeing numbers of users ramping up exponentially!”.

The platform also has USD 7+ million in TVL (total value locked) by investors currently. The crew has plans to add support for $USDT and $USDC, a new Cyberpunk-themed casino, community and private poker lounges and celebrity poker tournaments for charity.

Battle Racers

Decentraland has something to offer for the adrenaline junkies as well. Head to district (67, -21) to experience blockchain powered arcade racing, courtesy Battle Racers. An action packed game where you can design, build and race model cars on arcade-sized tracks, Battle Racers lets you put your (virtual) driving skills to the fore.

You can customize your race cars as per your needs, even fitting it with weapons to use your combat skills and annihilate your opponents. Being the first to the finish line need not be the only way to win a race here!

Battle Racers has been developed by Altitude Games, a leading mobile and blockchain game studio based in Manila. The company was founded by veterans of the Southeast Asian game industry in 2014, and currently has 40+ developers. Some of their other popular titles include ‘Kung Fu Clicker’, ‘Holy Ship!’ and ‘Mushroom Mania’.

You can enter the Battle Racers area to join the competitive races, just drive around on your own, customize your cars in the garage, or simply hang around as a spectator and enjoy the action. The garage has a range of available parts with different stats and skills, all of which contribute to your car’s overall performance.

Battle Racers also enables users to tokenize their designed car into a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), and create a digital asset that will permanently reside on the blockchain. The win/loss history of tokenized cars is continuously tracked on the blockchain. Consequently, the stats of such cars keep on improving as they compete in more races as compared to “off-chain” cars. Players also stand to earn more points when they race with such “on-chain” cars. And if that’s not all, you can even sell (or buy) tokenized cars on the Marketplace using Decentraland’s native $MANA token.

Sugar Club

How do netizens of Decentraland relax after a hard week of doing crypto? By hitting the Sugar Club, of course! Located in district (-1, -35), the nightclub Sugar Club is one of the most happening places and a regular meetup joint in the Decentraland metaverse.

It has already created its unique flavour and distinct style, and has proved to be an instant hit among folks looking for a good time. Unlike the other projects featured here, Sugar Club is the brainchild of a sole developer who goes by the name of Kay, and isn’t backed by any team. You can watch this YouTube interview to get more insights into his work and how he came up with this idea.

Sugar Club features a glowing purple floor and some of the best electro music in the Metaverse to help you let your hair down. If you’re tired of all the dancing and chatting, then you can stroll down to the digital art gallery, which features the latest creations from crypto-artists and visual creators.

One strange aspect of Sugar Club is that even though the dance floor might be full, you might hardly see a crowd. This is due to the way the Decentraland platform has been designed. When users enter Decentraland, they are split into multiple nodes or servers. So, even if two users enter the Club simultaneously, they can be on different servers and invisible to each other!

At the Sugar Club, you can spend your $MANA to buy crypto-drinks for yourself or for the lady at the bar. You can even use your $MANA to upgrade your seating place or access a wider pool of music to choose from.

Train Transit System

Any Metaverse requires a modern transit system to ferry around its netizens. In South Decentraland, we have the Trail Transit System designed by Polygonal Mind, a 3-D art studio and a known name in Decentraland. Polygonal Mind has been operational since 2017, and has worked on a wide range of projects, including PC and mobile games, virtual and augmented reality applications, and blockchain projects. They have been intricately involved in the development of Decentraland, and have designed multiple projects in the Metaverse. Some of their other contributions include the Momus Park, the Escape Room and the Aetherian B. Museum.

The Train Transit system (-68, -117) has been developed as a linear track, with stops for users to onboard or deboard between its line start and end. The stations are accessible through an elevator from the ground level. Two wagons going in opposite directions constitute the train, in order to avoid long waiting queues for users.

The décor of the stations and the trains has been heavily inspired by the popular PC game Bioshock. Each station has two levels of platforms, one placed at 16m and another platform placed on the 32m level. All the platforms are connected to one another such that you can easily turn around in the opposite direction in case you’ve missed your stop by mistake, just like a normal subway design.

In the words of Kourtin, one of the artists in the Polygonal Mind team, “I started defining the design of the whole elevator, based on how Bioshock portrayed art-deco steampunk elevators. I decided to follow a similar approach from scratch to the final model visuals. The design came to be open and wall-less in order to avoid a claustrophobic feeling.”

The train runs on an arid, vegetation-less landscape with a rocky environment, and the surroundings are detailed with resting areas and pipes decorating the paths. To add finishing touches, a limited number of curated art pieces have been placed along the trail. You can view and admire them on your way to your destination, or as you wait at the station for the train.

And these are just a few of the many Decentraland experiences that we could find time to explore in the last few weeks. There’s so much more to do – raise dragons Tamagotchi-style (My Little Dragon), explore island forests (Lemursiv by Eden Projects), throw pick-axes at the Viking Gym, buy merch at Barter Town, and so on. In a few days, you will also be able to play at a massive retro-style arcade being built by Atari. What are some of your favourite things to do in Decentraland? Let Rohit and me know on Telegram.

Disclosure: The authors have no vested interest in any of the projects mentioned in the article. They individually hold tiny amounts of $MANA and $DAI for testing out Decentraland-based projects and other dApps. They don't own any $DG.

About the authors: Rohit Chatterjee is an Analog Design Engineer working at Texas Instruments. Abhijoy Sarkar is a banker-turned-entrepreneur. They are high school friends who lost contact years ago. They reunited over crypto in early 2018 and have been investing through mutual research and shared knowledge.

This article was originally published on 13th February, 2021 in Hacker Noon. Reposting it here to keep a permanent record of this piece on Mirror.