The NFT craze appears to be going away, but bitcoin is somehow hanging in there. If you never understood what any of that was about in the first place, münecat made the best explainer I know of. I love her work debunking all sorts of misogyny and other terrible online things. Yes, this is a very long video. But it helped me understand the modern world no end, and is anyway worth watching for the first few minutes alone for a trip back through webtime.
If you don’t know what she means by “I’m going to have to Margot Robbie it”, here’s a clip from The Big Short to explain. Which is 100% a film worth watching, by the way. We may just be getting there again.
Amazing! Münecat is a genius, how does she do it? I learnt a lot. Thanks
Video is 2 years old now and unfortunately she is getting her NFT’s with her crypto currency confused.
One Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, is currently worth $70k. One. If you invested $1k in it in 2019 your stake would be worth $14k now, so there is obvious appeal to people stuck in gig economy jobs, up to their eyeballs in student debt, unable to afford their monthly rent, let alone get on the housing market.
It is an extremely risky way to invest but then any investment is risky. As the small print says.
Of course there are all sort of ethical issues around Crypto but then there are all sort of ethical issues around our traditional financial systems and institutions. Munecat song at the end sings that her man needs keep his money in HSBC, which is ironic given they are of the worst for sheltering money launderers and criminal funds.
Our financial institutions are propped up by governments and are basically cash machines for the 1%. It’s no wonder some people want a different way.
I don’t advocate for people to blow their savings on or remortgage their house on crypto anymore than I would for any other financial scheme. There will always be those that want to get rich quick and they pay the price. There are though canny (usually young) people who are benefiting from this new parallel economy. I know some from my job and they are not the stereotypical people portrayed in this video.
There is going to be a market correction soon as it is currently on the up and just like the traditional stock market, what goes up, must go down. However it isn’t going away.
The whole Sam Bankman Fried, FTX financial crime got me wondering as I thought, that was it for Cypto. However it turns out he was just another con man with the ability to pull the over wool over people’s eyes like every other con man and there hustles. Same crime, different field. Another Bernie Madoff. FTX was just a clearing house to buy crypto but SBF was taking client money and using it for his own purposes until he got caught. Nothing edgy or super criminal or a mastermind. Just a thief.
Anyway the video is fun and makes some good points but I wouldn’t ascribe any genius to it. Its biggest problem is its confirmation bias. The idea that everyone and everything attached to crypto are either stupid or evil or both.