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Platformization: The platform organizational form is eating the world and we can do better
My friend and researcher of the politics of tech platforms, Gianmarco Cristofari recently had an extended in my apartment and so we thought it’d be a great opportunity to interview each other. He interviewed me here for the Institute for Network Cultures to talk about my book and the left’s relationship with crypto. We spoke about how platforms are…
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Cute anime girl pfps or funding mechanism for esoteric neo-fascism? (Miladys and Remilia Corp)
For this episode I spoke to James Brennan (@jt_bren) who has been finishing up his Masters at the University of Colorado focused on crypto. As part of his research he took a dep dive into the infamous group behind the Miladys NFT collection, Remilia Corp. During the discussion we spoke about esoteric political ideologies professed…
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Obol Network – How DVT helps decentralize Ethereum and incentivize collectivism
I spoke to Oisín Kyne, co-founder and CTO of Obol Network, an ecosystem for trust minimized Ethereum staking that enables people to create, test, run and coordinate distributed validators. Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) enables the duties of an Ethereum validator to be performed across a cluster of nodes in order to improve resilience as compared to running…
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Cryptoleftists won at the ETH London Hackathon!
Hi all! Pleased to share that this weekend I was hacking away with some of the devs at Breadchain Cooperative for the ETH London Hackathon and we’ve won some money [Video proof here]! We competed in the GnosisPay track and built an integration with the new BREAD implementation we are building on Gnosis Chain and…
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From hacking the CIA as a teenager to community computers
I spoke to Mustafa Al-Bassam, co-founder and CEO of Celestia, a modular blockchain network that makes for others to securely launch their own blockchain. Mustafa was also a member of the black hat hacking group LulzSec under the name T-Flow known for hacking the CIA website, newspapaers owned by Rupert Murdoch, and other corporate and state organizations in 2011.…
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Screw App Stores, we got a Progressive Web App!
The Blockchain Socialist website now has a Progressive Web App you can download on to your phone or desktop! If you’re reading this I’m sure you’re already at least somewhat aware of the incredible downsides of big tech platforms; how they are walled gardens of giant tech companies, make money off of surveillance and selling…
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accelerationism is back and tech elites are making it cringier than it already was (e/acc)
If you’ve been surfing the tech sphere lately, you may have come across the term e/acc or effective accelerationism as if it was something new. But like most of these tech elite driven ideologies, it’s largely a mutation of more naive and sometimes sinister trends. For this episode I spoke to Adam Jones, host of Acid…
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Blockchain Radicals Audiobook Sample
The audiobook for my book Blockchain Radicals is officially out! This is a sample you can listen to if you want to know if it seems like something you’d want to pick up. You can find your audiobook copy in all of the major audiobook platforms including Audible, Libro.fm and audiobooks,com. You can still find all the other places to…
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Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform (gang gang mmm ice cream so good)
Tokens have increasingly more popular beyond just in the crypto world *gang gang mmm ice cream so good*. Tokens are not new, but how they have been used and their proliferation have exploded with the rise of digital platforms. I spoke to Rachel O’Dwyer, writer and a lecturer in Digital Cultures in the National College of…
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How Daft Punk Sold Techno to the World: A Map for Crypto
I wrote a piece published on my Mirror blog which you can find here about the legacy of Daft Punk and what the crypto world can learn from them. Their use of anonymity gave the feeling of a collective authority to remix and match the aesthetics and literal sounds of previous generations’ music. They did…
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A Regenerative Village as a DAO in Portugal (Traditional Dream Factory)
You can find the video version of the interview here where I’ve cut the interview with some film I took while at TDF. In this episode I spoke to Sam Delesque (@samueldelesque), founder of Traditional Dream Factory (TDF), a regenerative village based in Abela, Portugal that is blending crypto with permaculture and community. TDF is the first village part…
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OTNS: Is Praxis a bunch of fascists dressed as libertarians?
In this episode of OTNS, we spoke to Ali Breland, a journalist at Mother Jones who has written on crypto and politics, about his recent publication about the links between Praxis and far right figures. We spoke about his experience of going to a Praxis sponsored party in NYC, his interviews with ex-employees about the fascist sympathies of the…
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The incredible irony of crypto advertising (Video)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years! To end off the year I recorded a video reaction to a few recent crypto advertisements to analyze how they frame cryptocurrencies and their “radical” potential. Of course from a for-profit company’s point of view, what they consider radical and what I would are quite different. I take a…
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You can now get The Blockchain Socialist stickers!
Based on the feedback I received in the last patron poll, I’ve changed up a couple of things including the naming of the Patreon tiers and I’ve now made it possible to get a TBS sticker for Tiers 3 and 2! Here are the new levels of patronage and their benefits: Tier 1 Tier 2…
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China is a Process: Understanding the Chinese Crypto Diaspora Community
In this episode I spoke to Afra Wang, a Chinese diaspora journalist who has been in crypto now for a year and a half with Mask Network and organizer of the ZuConnect Decentralized Social Day in Istanbul where I moderated a panel on technology addiction in crypto. Given that usually crypto is often seen through and talked about…
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Safeguarding Ethereum’s Soul: Protocol Guild and governing the digital commons
In this episode I spoke with Trent Van Epps, who is part of the Ethereum Foundation and a key member of Protocol Guild (PG). PG is a collective of 152 Ethereum core protocol contributors who are curated to receive public good funding from ecosystem sponsors. In turn, this is meant to balance incentives for contributors to work on…
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Web3 Workers Rights, Exit to Community, and Solidarity Primitives
In this episode I spoke to my friend and scholar Tara Merk who is part of BlockchainGov and has been focusing her PhD thesis on Exit to Community (E2C). E2C is proposed as an alternative to IPOs or buyouts for founders of businesses to be able to be compensated for their work while giving ownership of their business to…
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Building autonomous infrastructure for tactical media
In this episode I spoke to Geert Lovink, a Dutch media theorist and founder of the Institute of Network Cultures who has been engaged with internet culture since at least the 80s. We were recently together in Cyprus for the latest installment of MoneyLab, which he also co-founded. Talking with him was a great way to gain more understanding…
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Seeing crypto for what it is and how to live with contradiction with Brett Scott
In this episode I spoke with Brett Scott, an independent scholar, writer, and defender of physical cash from a left point of view. Brett was involved in the early Bitcioin communities and one of the first guests of the podcast back in 2020 so it was nice to be able to talk to him again after so…
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OTNS: Prophets are dangerous and Capital doesn’t care about your feelings
In this episode we spoke to Wassim Alsindi, founder of MIT’s blockchain journal and the 0xSalon research collective based in Trust in Berlin. During the discussion we spoke about the concepts explored in his pieces Prophet Motives & Knightwork States and Necroprimitivism Rising. Wassim makes interesting connections between, the Crusades, the zero-sum mentality of network states, and capitalism’s capturing of…
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Postcapitalist Computing & Currency with Zachary Marlow from the Moneyless Society Podcast
During this last Crypto Commons Gathering I had the pleasure to meet Zachary Marlow from the Moneyless Society Podcast. We had the idea of recording a joint podcast with Zachary leading to talk about post-capitalism, crypto, and money. The discussion was also recorded in video format which you can find here on the Moneyless Society Podcast YouTube channel which I…
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OTNS: Transitioning ReFi DAO to a Coordi-Nation
In this episode we spoke to Monty Merlin Bryant, a co-founder of ReFi DAO and environmentalist to discuss the movement behind ReFi or Regenerative Finance. ICYMI, ReFi DAO had previously started to declare itself a network state but has since learning more about coordi-nations, have shifted course towards our conceptual framework instead. We discuss what that process has…
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Bitcoin wouldn’t have fixed this
In light of recent events ongoing in Israel and Palestine, I have decided to not publish any content to encourage my followers and supporters, if they want, to take the time to learn more about the conflict. I know for a lot of people this can seem like a complex issue that seems difficult to…
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Open-Source Funding vs Venture Capital with Scott Moore
In this episode I spoke with Scott Moore, the co-founder of Gitcoin and Public Works. Scott was one of the pioneers in public goods funding through quadratic funding and DAOs. During the discussion we talk about the “everything is coordination” meme, his advice for starting a DAO, and open source development. We also talk about our differences in views…
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OTNS: Scaling Collective Action for Millions of People
In this episode we spoke to co-founder of DAO Stack now working on Common, Matan Field who joined us at Zuzalu. During the discussion we talk about the need for scaling collective action, using fractal organization, and moving beyond economically based interdependence. Check out a previous episode to learn more about our framework for out network state alternative, …
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What is Left Accelerationism and Post-Work? Interview with Nick Srnicek
I spoke to Nick Srnicek, author of ‘Platform Capitalism’, ‘Inventing the Future’ and the ‘MANIFESTO FOR AN ACCELERATIONIST POLITICS‘. Together we dissect the roots of accelerationist politics of which Nick is known for his work on left accelerationism, its controversial implications, and its ongoing interpretation. We discuss why he doesn’t like the term accelerationist anymore,…
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Zuzalu Presentation on Network States – or why Network States are silly
As some of you probably know, in May I was at Zuzalu, a “pop-up city” sponsored by the Ethereum Foundation and Vitalik Buterin in Montenegro, where I was with Primavera and the rest of Blockchaingov to work out our conceptual framework for “Coordi-Nations” our Network State alternative. During the public part of our residency, I…
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OTNS: Is Code still Law? (Interview with Lawrence Lessig)
In this episode we had the pleasure of speaking to Lawrence Lessig, the legal scholar known for coining the term “code is law” which if you’ve been in crypto, you’ll know that this phrase has been very influential on the space. During the discussion we talk about the original design of the internet, how it…
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Venture capitalists steal from the future with David Z Morris
In this episode I spoke to David Z Morris, Chief Insights columnist at Coindesk who wrote a really nice book review of Block Radicals and creator of the Crypto Crooks podcast. David’s been following the crypto space since near the beginning when he reported on the gold bug community’s interest in bitcoin a decade ago. He is also the author…
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Blockchain Radicals Book Launch Event in NYC Recording
This episode is coming out on August 8th, 2023, aka publishing day for my book, “Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It“! On July 23rdI had the privilege to present my new book in New York City at the offices of Metalabel for the official book launch event! I was also interviewed by…
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Crypto in Africa and the Communism of Ubuntu
In this episode I spoke to Eric Annan, founder of Aya, a startup in Africa trying to bring more Africans into the crypto space I met while at Zuzalu. We had some very interesting conversations together while there and I thought he would be great to have on the show to discuss crypto from one African perspective.…
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Book Review of Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow
A couple of months ago I received an email from Cory Doctorow, a well known left leaning technology activist and crypto critic whom I’ve interviewed on the podcast before, asking if I would be open to reviewing his latest fiction novel titled Red Team Blues. I was surprised and honoured to be asked to do…
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ReSource Finance: Building Bridges to New Monetary Systems
In this episode I spoke with Ashley Buck, the founder of ReSource Finance and was also the first employee of Consensys. ReSource Finance is a decentralized mutual credit protocol and ecosystem building more regenerative economies by enabling growth without capital. ReSource is innovative in the mutual credit space because it adds a built in system for managing risk…
