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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…
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OTNS: Cosmo-Localism, Beyonders, and the Medieval Parallels to Digital Nomadism
In this episode we continue Phase 2 of OTNS with Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation. We discuss his concept of cosmo-localism which advocates for everything heavy to be local, and everything light to be global, how many medieval institutions were cosmo-local, and the implications of the rise of knowledge workers detached from physical…
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Collaborative Finance: Credit clearing for collectively doing more with less capital
For this episode I spoke to Ethen Buchman (@buchmanster) and Tomaž Fleischman (@T_Fleischman) in person while at the Commons Hubin Austria from May 22nd to 28th for the Collaborative Financeevent with the Crypto Commons Association, one of the projects part of the Breadchain Cooperative. Ethan is one of the co-founders of Cosmos and works at Informal Systems,…
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OTNS: The Rise of Coordi-Nations (Phase 2 has begun)
Last month Primavera and I spent about two weeks at Zuzalu in Montenegro with a team of people from Blockchaingov and elsewhere to concretely define our network state alternative of Coordi-Nations. We had five days of all day intensive workshops and three days of public presentations where we shared our findings to the attendees of Zuzalu. Right…
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My First Video (Reaction to The Deprogram and Hasan Piker)
So now that I’m officially soft doxxed with the launch of Blockchain Radicals coming up (up for pre-order), I thought I’d start trying to expand from writing and podcasts into video. For this first try I thought I’d keep it simple and do a reaction video to some comments that were made in a recent…
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BLOCKCHAIN RADICALS BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
For the past almost two years I’ve been stealth writing a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot…
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OTNS: DAOs and Decentralized Mafias
Primavera and I have been at Zuzalu and took the opportunity to speak with Ameen Soleimani (@ameensol) about his role in Ethereum history and the creation of Moloch DAO and Privacy Pools. We also discussed the geopolitical implications of crypto technology and how it relates to thinking about network states. Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is…
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OTNS: Network States is what you get when you have VC-brain
In this episode Primavera (@yaoeo), Tara Merk (@mpg_dd), and I speak to Jahed Monand (@againstutopia), co-founder and partner of Cerulean Ventures, co-host of The Ownership Economy podcast (@ownereconomy), and left wing anarchist. During the discussion we speak about Jahed’s interactions with Balaji, the violence inherent to borders, and the real problem with heavily regulated industries…
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The First Communist Network State is Already Here: Working Class Sovereignty
A few weeks ago, I visited Granada, Spain, to meet with my friend and comrade Giulio Quarta from the Crypto Commons Association before heading off to another city to meet more friends. On my last day there we decided to rent a car and take a day trip to Marinaleda, a village in the Andalusian…
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Collective Intelligence, Mini Socialism, and Microsolidarity
In this episode I spoke with Richard Bartlett (@RichDecibels), a co-founder of tech co-op Loomio, non-hierarchical management consultancy The Hum, and director of the social impact collective Enspiral. His most recent endeavour is a community building network called Microsolidarity, Although I’ve followed him for a while now, we met in person at the Solarpunk NOW event in Austria organized by the Crypto…
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OTNS: Critiques and Alternatives from a Former Professional Libertarian
For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Chris Berg, a cryptoeconomist, co-director at the RMIT Blockchain Hub, and a “former professional libertarian”. During the conversation we spoke about Chris’ revisionist history of blockchains, the shortcomings of TNS from a libertarian point of view, and Balaji’s state envy. Like we mentioned at the beginning of the series,…
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BONUS: Join Monetary Activists at Collaborative Finance!
BONUS EPISODE I spoke to Matthew Slater (@matslats) about an upcoming event happening at the Commons Hub in Austria from May 22nd to 28th called Collaborative Finance that he is helping organize with the Crypto Commons Association, one of the projects part of the Breadchain Cooperative which I co-founded. We spoke about what Collaborative Finance means, how money actually gets created in the private…
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OTNS: Institutional Design and Recognizing the Value of Politics
For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Jason Potts (@profjasonpotts), a professor of economics and co-director of blockchain innovation hub of RMIT. This is the first episode in the series where we’re talking to someone who is still a fan of Balaji. During the interview we spoke about his disappointments in the…
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Inside the Cybernetic Forest: Terra0’s Vision for Nature to Own Itself
In this episode I spoke with Paul Seidler (@brachlandberlin), a member of the Terra0 artist collective. Terra0 has been around since 2016 when it released a whitepaper outlining how a technologically enhanced forest combine with blockchain could own itself and exert autonomy. Since then the collective has organized several exhibitions exploring this theme including Flowertokens, an experiment with…
