Bitcoin ETFs are here and crypto has never been closer to the mainstream. Bad news for systemic oppression and the future of music. Great news for people of color and junior toad lovers. Yes, as always, Web 3.0 is a paradox and we’re here to puzzle it out for you. Read on for financial futures, NFT music, and a new demographic of crypto bros, explained. This is everything important on the Internet.
Chad & El Prof
The revolution will not be centralized.
We’re not the only ones who believe crypto is more than just a far right fundraising scam. Last week, Howard University was the site of the 4th annual Black Blockchain Summit. TIME reported on how the shifting demographics of blockchain adopters opens up financial possibilities — ownership rights, generational wealth, reparations.
Almost half of all crypto owners in the world are people of color. The anonymous nature of blockchain transactions raises red flags for a certain subset of people — mainly middle-aged Karens masturbating to pictures of a young Ronald Reagan who still believe in trickle-down economics and waging an unwinnable war on crime. But, by the same token, the blockchain protects those who were unfairly targeted by those policies, and by economic and political institutions at large.
The conference organizer reportedly went as far as suggesting the criticism of crypto contains racial subtext — the historical (and frankly moronic) belief that POC poverty stems from financial mismanagement, rather than from systemic inequality.
On the other hand, some believe access to crypto is still unequally distributed, or that it continues the long line of high risk investing ventures targeting low income demos. (The article references gas stations that have actually replaced lotto machines with cryptocurrency terminals — an unintentionally telling comparison.)
There are plenty of valid hesitations to blockchain adoption. But the new technology also holds vast potential for social change and it’s encouraging to see the message reaching and resonating with those who stand to benefit the most. So let’s wave goodbye to the Elon Musk dick-riders and Patagonia-vested hedge fund managers — we like the look of the new crypto bro better.
This Isn’t Even a Toad.
Every week I have the chance to write this column, and rarely does OpenSea present me with a winner to bring to you all.
Today, people are throwing their money away on a collection called 69Toads, by extremely online anon, @cryptokook4. Essentially our friend purchased Cryptoadz #810, an expensive pile of 8-bit shit, and in homage to said toad, is remixing and selling 69 of their own, lazily designed, knockoffs.
The added value here is the humor of numerical sexual references laced into the title of the collection and apparently how these toads are minted. Yesterday #69 King Gremp sold for a total of .169eth or around $700; a lot to pay for what I’m pretty sure is a terrible screenshot of Elfo from the hit Netflix cartoon, Disenchantment.
Stay tuned for next week, you’ll surely be disappointed again!
Fascists have people everywhere.
Last week on Main Street clean energy is going nowhere. Supply chains and climate change aren’t going anywhere. Newspapers (for better and worse) are going somewhere. Oath Keepers are going everywhere. Fascist fundraisers got cancelled. A racist white guy got cancelled. A funny-ish black guy did not. Terrorists were terrorists. Politicians and zebras died. One billionaire is better than two. None would be better for everyone.
Institutional Double Take
Today’s lecture is a bit more of a conspiracy theory, than anything grounded in concrete fact, so take the following with a grain of salt.
Whenever there has been a market crash in the last 100 years, the definition of crash is loose, there has consistently been a secondary correction, that on average manifests in the following 18 month period.
I believe these secondary corrections are a result of by, or inspired, large institutional investors re-arranging their portfolios, so that retail investors can take the L on hot, now-over priced, assets.
This time around, I feel very strongly that the stable asset class institutions have been acquiring and holding, are crypto bluechips; and when their house of cards falls again on retail investors, diamond hands will prevail. Also, those in the traditional markets are going to eat shit, and then have those losses magnified by inflation.
Main Points of Support:
Inflation, Officially on the Rise
BTC & ETH near ATC with Low Speculation Signals
Federal Reversal on Bitcoin ETF
Housing Moratorium, Pending Death
Traditional Market Gains, Astronomical Relative to the Bottom of the Crash
I rebalanced my portfolio months ago, but its starting to manifest. Again total conspiracy, but doesn’t it get the gears turning?
Broken record.
If I asked you what collection of music moved $100k in the past 7 days, what would you say? Young Thug? Don Toliver? Lil Ugly Mane? Probably yes to the first two — if only to the last. But if you remove all talent from that list, then add EulerBeats, which did 32.4eth in sales last week, you’ve got a solid picture of the state of music NFTs.
‘Broken record’ encapsulates it just as well, so I’m resigned to sounding like one in this column. EulerBeats Enigma is a ‘limited edition set of algorithmically generated art + music’ — in other words, some 50-odd amateur quality Depeche Mode type beats whipped up by some cheap AI without a splash of recognizable humanity.
These abominations deserve maybe a couple dozen streams on Youtube, not a floor price of 1.8eth. But crypto music being what it is, I can barely even muster the outrage anymore. Luckily, I get to cover some real musicians dropping imminently in my next column — I don’t have much more bandwidth for bland shit left in me.
SLOPPY SECONDS
Having an 8-bit avatar as a profile picture is priceless
An oral history of the best mixtape you’re (probably) just now hearing
No one knows the difference between cryptocurrency and weed
