Web3 is a Libertarian Dystopia

A comedic critical video essay on the web3 ideology and culture done by anti-MLM and cultural critic mĂŒnecat.

From the video description on YouTube.

In today’s video I’m looking into all the hype surrounding web3, blockchain technology, NFTs, and trying to work out WHY this is all happening. The Folding Ideas video ‘Line Goes Up’ came out as I was researching this, and I found that even though we had come to the same conclusion on many aspects of this, I actually came to a different conclusion as to why I think this is all happening - and it’s much more dystopian than most people think. This technology is dangerous and could ruin people’s lives in more ways than just losing out on their investments when the bubble deflates or pops. I have found that many people on the left don’t like this technology but they’re not quite sure why - so my video focuses more on how Bitcoin in particular has strong ties to far-right extremism which was birthed out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and how the extremely libertarian & conservative Ethereum founder, Peter Thiel, wants to harvest data for the purposes of governing society with rigid code, and he’s getting Jordan Peterson to help.

  1. 0:00 Intro
  2. 6:41 NFTs
  3. 12:17 Gary Vee's NFTs
  4. 18:16 Celebrity NFTs
  5. 19:22 Play-to-earn NFTs
  6. 23:02 NFT marketing works exactly like MLMs
  7. 26:08 Influencers and Poocoins, Securities Fraud
  8. 36:53 Cryptoland
  9. 41:22 Web3 vs Web3
  10. 43:43 Banking the Unbanked
  11. 47:12 Is it secure?
  12. 52:10 Sending money internationally?
  13. 54:39 bUt tHe FeD pRiNtS mOnEy
  14. 1:02:05 The Superbowl Crypto ads & the "Early days" argument
  15. 1:06:37 BItcoin: The Gold Standard & Right-Wing Extremism
  16. 1:18:27 Ethereum: Peter Thiel wants your data to build a Libertarian utopia
  17. 1:33:29 Is this a bubble?

Sections

NFTs

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Gary Vee's NFTs

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Celebrity NFTs

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Play-to-earn NFTs

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NFT marketing works exactly like MLMs

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Influencers and Poocoins, Securities Fraud

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  • Azgad-Tromer, Shlomit. 2018. ‘Crypto Securities: On the Risks of Investments in Blockchain-Based Assets and the Dilemmas of Securities Regulation’. Am. UL Rev. 68: 69.
  • Boreiko, Dmitri, Guido Ferrarini, and Paolo Giudici. 2019. ‘Blockchain Startups and Prospectus Regulation’. European Business Organization Law Review 20 (4): 665–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40804-019-00168-6.
  • Cumming, Douglas J., Sofia Johan, and Anshum Pant. 2019. ‘Regulation of the Crypto-Economy: Managing Risks, Challenges, and Regulatory Uncertainty’. Journal of Risk and Financial Management 12 (3): 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm12030126.
  • Debler, Julianna. 2018. ‘Foreign Initial Coin Offering Issuers Beware: The Securities and Exchange Commission Is Watching’. Cornell Int’l LJ 51: 245.
  • Ferrari, Valeria. 2020. ‘The Regulation of Crypto-Assets in the EU – Investment and Payment Tokens under the Radar’. Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 27 (3): 325–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X20911538.
  • Securities, US, Exchange Commission, and others. 2017. ‘SEC Issues Investigative Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities’. US Securities and Exchange Commission 25: 2017–2131.

Cryptoland

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  • Kelly, Jemima. 2022. ‘Cryptoland: A Glimpse into the Future We All Deserve’. Financial Times, 7 January 2022. https://www.ft.com/content/c79ea41b-41c0-4900-90ee-6e6347449610.
  • Eich, Stefan. 2019. ‘Old Utopias, New Tax Havens: The Politics of Bitcoin in Historical Perspective’. Regulating Blockchain: Techno-Social and Legal Challenges, 85–98.
  • Allon, Fiona. 2018. ‘Money after Blockchain: Gold, Decentralised Politics and the New Libertarianism’. Australian Feminist Studies 33 (96): 223–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2018.1517245.
  • Beltramini, Enrico. 2021. ‘Against Technocratic Authoritarianism. A Short Intellectual History of the Cypherpunk Movement’. Internet Histories 5 (2): 101–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2020.1731249.
  • Brody, Ann, and StĂ©phane Couture. 2021. ‘Ideologies and Imaginaries in Blockchain Communities: The Case of Ethereum’. Canadian Journal of Communication 46 (3). https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2021v46n3a3701.
  • Golumbia, David. 2013. ‘Cyberlibertarianism: The Extremist Foundations of “Digital Freedom.”’ Clemson University Department of English.
  • Inwood, Olivia, and Michele Zappavigna. 2021. ‘Ideology, Attitudinal Positioning, and the Blockchain: A Social Semiotic Approach to Understanding the Values Construed in the Whitepapers of Blockchain Start-Ups’. Social Semiotics, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2021.1877995.

Web3 vs Web3

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Banking the Unbanked

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  • Debate: Crypto Can Bank the Unbanked
  • GĂŒrses, Seda, Arun Kundnani, and Joris Van Hoboken. 2016. ‘Crypto and Empire: The Contradictions of Counter-Surveillance Advocacy’. Media, Culture and Society 38 (4): 576–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716643006.
  • Jutel, Olivier. 2022. ‘Blockchain Humanitarianism and Crypto-Colonialism’. Cell Press Open Access, Patterns, 3 (1): 8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100422.
  • Ottenhof, Luke. 2021. ‘Crypto-Colonialists Use the Most Vulnerable People in the World as Guinea Pigs’. VICE Media.
  • Crandall, Jillian. 2019. ‘Cryptoeconomic Geographies and Contestation in Puerto Rico’. Thesis. PhD Thesis. http://jilliancrandall.net/cryptoeconomic-geographies-and-contestation-in-pr/.
  • Greeley, Brendan. 2019. ‘Facebook’s Libra Will Not Help the Unbanked’. Financial Times 18.
  • Kapsis, Ilias. 2021. ‘Should We Trade Market Stability for More Financial Inclusion? The Case of Crypto-Assets Regulation in EU’. FinTech, Artificial Intelligence and the Law: Regulation and Crime Prevention, 85–104. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003020998-9.
  • Sen, Atreyee, Johan Lindquist, and Marie Kolling. 2020. Who’s Cashing in? Contemporary Perspectives on New Monies and Global Cashlessness. Vol. 19. Berghahn Books.

Is it secure?

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Sending money internationally?

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bUt tHe FeD pRiNtS mOnEy

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The Superbowl Crypto ads & the "Early days" argument

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BItcoin: The Gold Standard & Right-Wing Extremism

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Ethereum: Peter Thiel wants your data to build a Libertarian utopia

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Is this a bubble?

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