The first believes (or would like the marks to believe) that blockchains and the rest will usher in an age of tremendous benefits and innovation. The second can see how bad the web3 arguments are but still believes there must be a pony in there somewhere (NYT being the leading example). The third is coming to the Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather conclusion that the inmates are running the asylum.

The best arguments are coming from the third camp.

I worked at the SEC for 18+ yrs, the last 11 as Chief of the SEC Office of Internet Enforcement. I have taught cyber law at Georgetown and Duke Law Schools for 20 yrs. I spent 5 yrs at Stroz Friedberg fighting cyber crime. Why I believe the bulk of Web3 is both scourge & scam.? pic.twitter.com/M273MUTUeE

— John Reed Stark (@JohnReedStark) April 1, 2022

And that's before we even begin to talk about the environmental damage, enabling of illicit financing, regulatory arbitrage, predatory inclusion, and a whole slew of negative externalities.

It is entirely rational to prima facie reject the entire premise of the crypto project.

— Stephen Diehl (@smdiehl) April 3, 2022

New from me and @ben_mckenzie: we took a look at Binance -- the world's largest crypto exchange, a money-printing machine with no headquarters and a nomadic CEO -- and why some users are suing it over a mysterious outage on May 19, 2021.https://t.co/e66wPMGEHx

— Jacob (Read more...)