Recommended listening: The Crypto Story by Bloomberg's Matt Levine

Hylas

https://open.spotify.com/show/71pMAa4Ba0rbPNXMcDXywG

This link will take you to Bloomberg's Crypto podcast, which I don't have an opinion about as a whole.

But I wanted to point out specifically the episides that are titled Bonus: The Crypto Story by Matt Levine

As of now, there's four parts out and there's more to come.

 

You may (or, more likely, may not) remember that I'm very sceptical of all things crypto.

But The Crypto Story is not not about mocking, or condemning, or "exposing" crypto.

It's a well done explanation of what crypto actually is and I found it engrossing and illuminating, which is why I wanted to recommend it here.

I don't understand every single thing that's being said but I feel I already have a much better understanding of many crypto terms and concepts (Bitcoin, Etherum, Smart Contract, etc).

As far as I can tell the author takes a truly neutral stance on the matter.

 

I'm still very sceptical of crypto generally, and NFT projects in the "Bored Ape" mold specifically.

But having listened to this article so far, I now also have some appreciation for some of the ideas and philosophies behind crypto.

There's a lot of hot air, but there's actually also something behind all the smoke and mirrors, and I find it genuinely interesting and fascinating.

Cheers!

 

... Wait, I've been talking to an empty room all this time?!? Curses...

 

McGyver

No, the room's not empty... I was hiding in that crate of used sweat socks... I don't really reply to anything in this forum anymore because it usually goes poof... 
I'm wondering if there is a particular section or episode that's more relevant to the "something behind the smoke and mirrors" part... At this point I don't think there is much more for me to learn about crypto that would change my (non-positive) opinion... but if it's a particular thing I could go to, I'd be interested, at least to see if it's something I'm not already aware of... at three or more hours it's a little long to sit through if it's all the same stuff. 
I don't really think crypto has any great redeeming qualities, "blockchain" perhaps for other uses, but not whatever this incarnation of crypto has become.

I'll leave it at that, as I don't think there was anything controversial in that statement.

Hylas

Here's the article in text form, if you prefere reading (and jumping around) over listening: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-the-crypto-story/

Of the 4 major chapters, you'll probably find the most positive things about crypto in chapter 1 and some of chapter 2. 

Chapter 1 views crypto through the lens of trying to economy (yes, it's a verb now) without the involvement of banks and other major institutions. This is positioned as a response to the hugely irresponsible BLEEPery that said banks and institutions were up to, leading to the BLEEPstorm that was 2008. I lean anti-capitalist in my believes, so this line of thinking has my interest.

Chapter 1 also gets quite granular about the technical side of how crypto works... as in, what does it have to do with cryptography? What is cryptography? I found this part also super interesting, and knowing the underlying basics just a little bit made me a bit more confident talking and thinking and opinionating about crypto.

Chapter 2 gets into what Ethereum is, and how it's different from Bitcoin. I didn't know anything about it before and now that I've learned a tiny little bit, I think the Ethereum technology is genuinely fascinating and a true, important innovation.

Starting in chapter 2 and throughout chapter 3 the author talks about the reality of what crypto has become. What may (or may not) have started as an anti-capitalist (or at least anti-centralisation) impulse has in fact become hyper-capitalist instead, and it looks bad bad bad. At least that's my interpretation of what he writes. He draws a direct parallel between 2008 and the spectacular crypto-crashes we keep having this year.

I think the article is really well written and explains things extremely well. I learned so much, about crypto and also about economy in general. And I found it entertaining to read.

Ultimately it didn't hugely change my outlook on crypto, I'm still very sceptical. But it did change my mind a little bit. I used to think crypto was a Ponzy wrapped around hot air. Now I think crypto is ten Ponzies wrapped around a solid core of philosophy and technology that is genuinely fascinating and interesting.

McGyver

Thank you for the link.

I read through the first three parts and I haven't found anything I haven't been aware of yet... I can't say I've been "following" it, but I've been very aware of it (mostly the P2P/Blockchain thing) for at least 13 or so years... in fact when it was new and you could still mine using a decent home computer, I used to tell people about it with skeptical amusement.

The article is an interesting explanation of crypto, but I'd caution one who is listening to or reading it to take it all with a grain of salt... my feeling is this is written from the point of view of someone who is very financially secure and is talking to someone who is also very financially secure and not prone to overly rash behavior and is interested in exploring cryptocurrency... The author is very amused by it all, a bit intrigued to see where it will all go and not going to throw stones in a glass house... It kind of reminds me of someone explaining why it's not "such a" bad thing when oil prices skyrocket... (spoiler: if you are a regular person it is, everything is effected by it and it's never a good thing)... 

A lot of the explanations are also "in a perfect world", but kind of ignore how they've actually played out or where they are obviously heading... there are some light concessions to certain events, but mostly "light".

Another thing the author does is they keep saying (in one way or another) in regards to many of the negative aspects of crypto, something to the effect of "this is not entirely accurate" meaning something like "people keep saying this, but that's not really entirely true"... and in most of the situations where I see them say this, it glosses over something or the rebuttal to that is... "uh, yeah... it's 80% accurate and the other 20% is technically debatable"... for example in Part 2 "A Store Of Value", there is a part about an old "fun argument" made against Bitcoin loosing its value... the author's assertion is it's "mostly wrong"... Technically (a hard technically) it's actually mostly right... and the part that's "not wrong" is pretty correct.

I'm not saying the article is wrong or bad or misleading... I just see a very soft sell being laid out... I feel if I were to have read this article without any preexisting knowledge of crypto, I'd probably come away with a much more rosy opinion.

I don't mean to poo-poo the whole thing, it is interesting and I don't want to seem overly critical.

Anyway, thanks for the link.

 

 

By the way for anyone wanting to get a handle on Crypto/NFT terminology (pro or con, you should arm yourself with knowledge of these acronyms and word salads), there are a lot of glossaries from financial or crypto sites... Investopedia is one that's okish... I'd try to find something more academic than enthusiastic... (I'm not adding links, because it might violate something or whatever and stuff by me here tends to go poof)... 
It's easier to remember these terms in a glossary format I feel, and quicker to find when you forget, so if you find a good one, bookmark it.

Hylas

Thanks for your perspective! I don't have much to add but I love how thoughtful your response is!

Hylas

Ok, so here's a hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky use for the blockchain.

My boyfriend and I were looking for a Joni Mitchell album and realised that her music is not on Spotify. We found it on YouTube. And we had a short discussion about which is the worse corporation, Spotify or Google. We concluded that we don't know which is worse (prolly Google), but they are certainly both bad.

So, what if musicians would store their music on the blockchain.

Now, in the present reality this would not work because the blockchain can only store tiny bits of information. It can't even store a JPG and it cetrainly can't store an MP3, let alone Joni Mitchell's entire discography.

But let's imagine a future in which this is no longer a limitation. I imagine each song being stored as a smart contract. The smart contract is set up by the artist themselves (or the label, if they're working with a label). The user pays 0.0001 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract plays you the song. The ETH would automatically be distributed between the artist and whoever else has a claim, according to how the smart contract was set up.

We would be cutting out Google, Spotiffy, Apple, and the likes in the process.

I don't know. My understanding of the technology is still relatively limited and I'm open to arguments against the scenario I'm describing here. Let's debate! :)

Hylas

Hylas said:

 

But let's imagine a future in which this is no longer a limitation. I imagine each song being stored as a smart contract. The smart contract is set up by the artist themselves (or the label, if they're working with a label). The user pays 0.0001 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract plays you the song. The ETH would automatically be distributed between the artist and whoever else has a claim, according to how the smart contract was set up.

Alternative model: The user pays 0.01 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract gives them a token. The token allows the user to listen to the song (or album) indefinitely, without further payment. If the user has had enough of the music and is confident they don't want to listen to it anymore in the future, they can sell the token to other users, and 30% (or whatever) of the sales price goes to the artist.

AlmightyQUEST

Your assumption is that no record label would be involved in the recording and distribution of music, no other musicians or writers are involved, or any labels and musicians are squeaky clean with no problems. Then, the musician having a personal contact with you to get the music will cut out any middle men. This goes back to, NFTs are either trying to solve a problem that they invented, are "solving" a problem that has already been solved by other people in a better way, or doesn't solve the problem but putting money in the pockets of the people claiming they have the solution.

plasma_ring

Hylas said:

Ok, so here's a hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky use for the blockchain.

My boyfriend and I were looking for a Joni Mitchell album and realised that her music is not on Spotify. We found it on YouTube. And we had a short discussion about which is the worse corporation, Spotify or Google. We concluded that we don't know which is worse (prolly Google), but they are certainly both bad.

So, what if musicians would store their music on the blockchain.

Now, in the present reality this would not work because the blockchain can only store tiny bits of information. It can't even store a JPG and it cetrainly can't store an MP3, let alone Joni Mitchell's entire discography.

But let's imagine a future in which this is no longer a limitation. I imagine each song being stored as a smart contract. The smart contract is set up by the artist themselves (or the label, if they're working with a label). The user pays 0.0001 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract plays you the song. The ETH would automatically be distributed between the artist and whoever else has a claim, according to how the smart contract was set up.

We would be cutting out Google, Spotiffy, Apple, and the likes in the process.

I don't know. My understanding of the technology is still relatively limited and I'm open to arguments against the scenario I'm describing here. Let's debate! :)

People sell their music through these mega-distributors (YouTube, Spotify, etc.) because that's where the listeners are, not because it's the only way to sell music. If it were an issue of cutting those out, everyone would sell their music exclusively on Bandcamp, or through their personal websites. 

Every use for blockchain or crypto works super well in a hypothetical future where everyone stops using anything other than blockchain and crypto to do business, which they aren't going to do because it's a pain. This isn't me being dismissive or anything; it's a known barrier to adoption that even the most dedicated crypto pushers will admit is a problem for them. 

Amazon would not sell fewer products if you could pay for everything available on that site with crypto. They are selling ease of purchase and speedy distribution, just like those music distributors are selling ease of purchase and the ability to listen to all your songs in one place. The way to stop this from hurting artists and consumers is to hold big businesses legally accountable for anti-consumer practices, not to start buying things with digital tokens that were invented to enrich a bunch of objectivists with poor impulse control. 

McGyver

Also when you are paying in crypto there is the problem of huge shifts in value... this volatility makes it unsuitable for transactions that don't have huge cushions built in or stuff that is fundamentally worthless... if I create something using a process that is free to me and totally automated that I can sell for thousands of dollars, cryptocurrency is perfect for me to except because if I lose money because of a market dip, it's on something that I invested virtually no effort in... selling a car using crypto is senseless unless you are building in a huge markup... with a rare or high end luxury car that's a possibility... not so much with an 03' Honda. 

ArkadySkies

Hylas said:

Ok, so here's a hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky use for the blockchain.

My boyfriend and I were looking for a Joni Mitchell album and realised that her music is not on Spotify. We found it on YouTube. And we had a short discussion about which is the worse corporation, Spotify or Google. We concluded that we don't know which is worse (prolly Google), but they are certainly both bad.

So, what if musicians would store their music on the blockchain.

Now, in the present reality this would not work because the blockchain can only store tiny bits of information. It can't even store a JPG and it cetrainly can't store an MP3, let alone Joni Mitchell's entire discography.

But let's imagine a future in which this is no longer a limitation. I imagine each song being stored as a smart contract. The smart contract is set up by the artist themselves (or the label, if they're working with a label). The user pays 0.0001 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract plays you the song. The ETH would automatically be distributed between the artist and whoever else has a claim, according to how the smart contract was set up.

We would be cutting out Google, Spotiffy, Apple, and the likes in the process.

I don't know. My understanding of the technology is still relatively limited and I'm open to arguments against the scenario I'm describing here. Let's debate! :)

Most likely you'd be downloading it off of Open Sea/Some Other Crypto Startup or future Google/Spotify/Apple's centralized NFT exchange. Centralized NFT exchanges don't exist because because the asset itself isn't on the blockchain, they exist because it's the easiest, safest way for a nontechnical person to get their product out, minimize the technical and security risks of handling the payment or product themselves, and boost the potential number of customers who may see it as far more people will go to Open Sea than some random dude's website.

After all, there's no reason Joni Mitchell can't sell her music directly off her own website now - no blockchain needed. She'd just have to manage all the technical and security concerns herself (or pay a third party), and hope that all of her fans who wanted to buy her music went to her website. Same way no one has to upload their videos on youtube to put their videos online. They could put them on their own website - Google Search would still show them. But if they want their content to be seen by a larger audience, benefit from algorithms that can potentially recommend their videos/products to viewers, if they don't want to manage the technical stuff themselves, centralized platforms are inevitably where they will flock to.

Similarly, if you wanted, you could delete your social media accounts (if you have any) and replace them with your own personal website or blog, but it's easier for friends, family, and any potential new friends or followers to find you if you're on a site where other people already are. A lot of small websites from before social media was big are gone, and have been replaced by accounts on centralized social media platforms.

Also, when you say "The user pays 0.0001 ETH (or whatever) and the smart contract plays you the song" does this mean we don't get to download the song and listen to it whenever we want? In this specific implementation, the blockchain is now DRM that charges us everytime we listen to music?