A week in fiasco
Some reflections on pretty much one of the craziest weeks in 2022, though I did add in a few adorable and fluffy surprises.
This week has been a week. Okay, let’s just get into it.
Twitter needs to die
There have been circulating rumors saying Twitter is going to die. Basically, Elon Musk gave his employees an ultimatum — either sign on to be a part of the new Twitter or leave. Lot’s of people left.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
[Google form link]
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
I’ve been trying to mentally stay out of this Twitter fiasco, but the more time I’ve had to think about it, the more I agree that Twitter as it was should reset. Elon Musk — no matter your thoughts on him — is doing something. At this point, I’m pretty sure most tech companies are bloated and have grown too fast. Without nurturing the ecosystem by doing frequent burns, you’re left with overgrowth until one big wildfire takes out the entire forest. That’s what’s happening with Twitter (and several other big tech companies) right now — wildfires.
Change is going to break a lot of things. It’s going to break Twitter and make it a shitshow (even more than it already was), and it’s going to consume the media attention while people rage over workplace culture transitions (from coasting to crackdowns).
I don’t know if I told you this, but a few weeks ago I was walking past Twitter HQ and someone from Channel 5 interviewed me on the street. The whole time, he was trying to bait anger out from me, as everyone online (and ironically, on Twitter) is doing to each other via their founded or unfounded, rational or irrational hatred for Elon Musk. At times like these it’s important to recognize if your opinions are really your own. I’m not going to worship Elon Musk. I’m also not going to paint him as the devil. I simply do not care.
My opinions are simple, really. My current opinion is that I hate Twitter because they keep banning me for really idiotic things while poorly moderating actual terrorism and hate speech.
Oh, yeah, I got banned again after tweeting my outrage at Ticketmaster for their extremely shite handling of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour sale.
I’m either going to quit this app forever or wait enthusiastically for new implementations of whatever Musk want to try next.
This one below might be interesting.
Taylor Swift is having a horrible week
I feel so bad for her. First, Ticketmaster fucked up her tour sale and now people are giving her hate for it, as if she has any control over the monopolistic fuckery that is Ticketmaster. I want to end Ticketmaster. Second of all, Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey) is leaving Grey’s anatomy. Taylor Swift loves Grey’s anatomy so much that she named one of her cats Meredith.
Don’t ask me how I’m doing, I am livid.
It’s easier to go to fucking space than it is for Ticketmaster to do their one job right.
I went to a farm
Here’s a fun little break from all the madness. Last weekend, I went glamping on a farm owned by this wonderful woman who lived completely, sovereignly off-grid. I had a lovely time and told her about Bitcoin, which was right in line with her philosophies and lifestyle — these are my favorite people to introduce Bitcoin to: it simply clicks for them.
Anyway, here’s an alpaca. They are the fluffiest, most docile looking creatures but they’re here to protect the [goat] herd. They will spit and stomp. I love them.
The most insane thing to happen in crypto ever
The TLDR is that the CEOs of two of the largest global cryptocurrency exchanges — CZ from Binance and SBF from FTX — started beefing because SBF was lobbying for DeFi regulations and CZ didn’t think he was a team player (he’s not), and now FTX is insolvent (can’t payout users requesting withdrawals) after CZ may or may not have tipped the domino (via a tweet) causing the cascade of insane events that led to FTX along with a bunch of other subsidiaries freezing customer funds and filing for bankruptcy.
Basically, the biggest fraudulent, criminal shitshow to happen in crypto ever. I have not much else to say about this, other than a few thoughts I wrote in a blog post for Gamma below. It’s really fucking heartbreaking.
a preview
If you’re at all familiar with crypto (which, if you’re reading this blog post, you probably are) then you know that this week’s FTX meltdown led to billions of dollars in crypto funds being frozen and drained from millions of retail customer accounts. Some call it the Lehman moment of crypto, others see it as the sign of the times. There’s no doubt that the finance industry is filled with crooks and criminals, and crypto is no exception — whether its a destined death spiral of an algorithmic stablecoin or a cult personality leading the charge behind some token magically printed for the value of “uh…community”, industry scams have always, in hindsight, been obvious and inevitable when the dominoes finally fall. But this time was different. This time, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing, trusted centralized exchanges went bust because of irresponsible, opaque decisions made by those at the top. No forewarnings. Only pain.
Wasn’t crypto supposed to be different? Wasn’t the messaging supposed to be “f**k central banks, we give power back to the people”? That’s what industry leaders like SBF, the CEO of FTX touted. What the general public didn’t realize was instead of Web3.0, they were building Wall Street3.0. Instead of changing the world, they’ve set the industry and public perception of crypto back by who knows how much. At the same time, millions of users and related institutions were insurmountably burned. It’s heartbreaking, numbing, and has left shards of shrapnel across the crypto industry. How can we recover?
My thoughts on self-custody
First of all, self-custody (holding your own un-confiscatible keys to your money) is a human right. That’s that. The government isn’t our pimp and shouldn’t have forcible control over the right to our funds. If you’re confident in yourself and in the current self-custody consumer tech that’s available, then this week in crypto is a great lesson and/or reminder to take control of your crypto private keys.
But generally speaking, self-custody (as it stands, right now) for the average person will never be the solution. Now, there’s a bunch of obvious reasons that you could have different self-righteous opinions on (self-custody is hard, maybe you don’t think so; people lose and forget their passwords, maybe you’re perfect) but here’s why I think this is a pipe dream, just like the world being on a bitcoin standard is a pipe dream.
I think self-custody solutions will get better. As they are right now, it’s basically having a long password that you have to keep safe and if you forget it or misplace it, then all your money is gone forever. And it’s not a password that you can guess. This is an objectively bad system. There are different variations of this, but they all don’t address the root issue of self-custody: humans are flawed.
Trust is an integral part of society. When we keep our money in banks, pay for things with cash, we’re trusting the systems in place and individuals to 1) ensure that our money is safe and 2) our money is real. Fiat has a shitload of problems when it comes to trust, which is why Bitcoin even existed in the first place — to fix the problems of having to trust (banks, which take risks with your money, and people, who might create counterfeit money).
Trust is built on reputation. If your bank has a bad reputation, you might choose to bank somewhere else. For instance, if you are complaining about banks and you chose Wells Fargo, then maybe it’s your own fault for choosing the worst bank. For crypto exchanges, because this industry is so new, it’s hard to have a record of reputation built up — you never know what might happen.
But something unique to crypto exchanges vs. banks is that crypto is inherently transparent. Each transaction is automagically recorded on respective blockchains. While companies don’t operate this way, they can instead be transparent about how they hold their funds and how much of it is held. That’s why we’ve seen so many crypto companies come out this week with proofs of reserve (by showcasing their crypto addresses) and other transparent audits — to build back the trust that FTX singlehandedly tore apart for the entire industry’s centralized entities.
All this is to say that if we want to onboard the next 8 billion people to crypto, there’s no escaping centralized exchanges. Centralized exchanges need to be good, transparent, and responsible. I work for a centralized exchange (a good one IMO) so maybe my opinion is wrong, but I care about getting crypto mainstream.
The next thing would be to work on the self-custody user experience. I have no idea what this might look like but I’m sure a new generation of tweens far smarter than I will figure it out soon.
A few more quick bites
Elizabeth Holmes (founder of Theranos) has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. SBF & co better face something similar or worse…
I just found my new favorite movie: Where the Crawdads Sing. The main character embodies the strength that I always wish I could have; it’s existent in my head, fleeting in reality.
Didn’t release any crypto content this week given the current crypto climate. I figured it would be insensitive, so I’ll resume it whenever things get uninteresting again. I can’t tweet about it right now anyway.
karma is a cat, purring in my lap cause it loves me (I got a new kitty)
meet miso
You're right, we should continue working on self-custody UX (and education), because it's the only way. With the ever-increasing threat of social credit scores and censorship, billions of people holding their funds on CEXs would not work for obvious reasons. Also, your kitty looks like a scary little alien.