Guide to Crypto and Web3

Big claims are being made for the potential of crypto and web3. We have engaged in a multi-month project of research and analysis to "make sense" of crypto and web3 and to evaluate the various claims being made for and against.

We have spoken with technologists, economists, computer scientists, crypto skeptics and crypto enthusiasts. Much of the resulting material is published on this site. The culmination of our efforts is this guide.

It is divided into two parts. The first part is an introduction to the key concepts related to crypto and web3. The second part sets out the key claims and aspirations for crypto and web3 together with an evaluation of those claims.

This main part of the guide is organized by aspiration. Under each aspiration can be found the associated claim(s) with a brief description of the claim and our evaluation along with links to further detail, related concepts, FAQs and a reading list. For example, we identified one common claim along the lines that crypto and web3 can democratize finance. This, in turn is tied to a deeper aspiration of a fairer and/or more innovative economy.

It is important that we make good choices about crypto and web3. Ultimately, we must decide whether to support, improve or restrict them. And to do so in as constructive, intersectional and depolarizing way as possible. This guide is a resource for doing so.

Table of Contents

Foundational Concepts

Foundational FAQs

Aspiration 1: a better economy

A more stable, more efficient, and more transparent economy.

Claim: Blockchain technology can facilitate the reduction of state intervention in the money supply

Description

This section contains information relating to the claim that Bitcoin can be the next gold standard. Those making this claim argue that the gold standard is good because government/central bank intervention in the money supply will inevitably lead to inflation, which is harmful to the free market and commerce.

According to advocates of Bitcoin as the new gold standard, Bitcoin shares the features of gold which make it a good choice to use as a currency, but also has additional features which make it an even better choice than gold for a currency.

Evaluation: False

Bitcoin as a new gold standard would not achieve a more stable, more efficient economy:

  • the gold standard is inherently deflationary and moderate inflation is far preferable;
  • the flexibility offered by the ability for governments/central banks to intervene is highly useful;
  • the gold standard can lead to the reverberation of shocks through the global economy;
  • there are ways to democratize the fiat system without returning to gold;
  • unlike gold, Bitcoin has no potential as a store of value due to its inherent hypervolatility
  • Bitcoin, unlike traditional commodities, has a negative price elasticity of demand. For this reason, Bitcoin looks like a speculative bubble, which at some point will inevitably crash.
  • Bitcoin does not share gold’s uniquness due to the emergence of many ‘alternative coins’.

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Claim: Blockchain based financial innovation will create more efficient markets

Description

This claim argues that we are evolving towards a 24/7 real-time, always-trading international market with greater complexity and lower friction than at present and that crypto is the next step in this evolution.

According to the capitalist notion that greater financialization is an engine for progress, added market efficiency will result from increase in financialization through the development of more complex, blockchain-based financial products (ranging from better payment rails to more efficient clearing systems).

This position assumes that capitalism is net positive in the world, and a fairer, more efficient and transparent economy benefits everyone.

Evaluation: False

“Innovative” blockchain-based financial instruments and financial services would introduce an unacceptable amount of risk into the markets, thus not acheiving a more stable, more efficient, and more transparent economy.

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Aspiration 2: A fairer and freer society

Claim: The state can and should be hollowed out and blockchain technology can facilitate this

Description

This claim argues that states are no longer desirable and that blockchain technology can be used to hollow out the state and replace its functions. Advocates of this claim argue that the internet is the new basis of human life, and, as the internet is a global force, borders should no longer exist. We can replace all legacy functions of the state with software, and the public goods that states once supported can be replaced by either the private sector or blockchain apps.

In addition, modern nation states are too big. Blockchain technology can be used to achieve a more optimal form of human self-organization.

Evaluation: False

The entire argument is predicated on the technology being able to do the things being claimed. This is falsely treated as a technical reality and an inevitability. States exist for a very good reason. It’s the only structure proven to sustain public goods at a civilization level and be the guarantor of last resort for justice, defense, and monetary issuance.

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Claim: Web3 can facilitate financial inclusion

Description

This claim argues that cryptocurrencies are a liberatory and egalitarian force that democratizes company formation, lowers barriers, and allows all types of common enterprises that were previously prohibited by law. In addition, crypto can facilitate the financial inclusion of the unbanked.

Evaluation: False

Financial inclusion via cryptocurrencies is not something to be desired. The crypto markets are currently drastically under regulated, resulting in unacceptable levels of risk to individuals and risk to the broader financial system. Web3 facilitates predatory inclusion: individuals are encouraged to join a volatile and risk-laden marketplace rife with fraud and asymmetric information. This method of "financial inclusion" therefore cannot faciliate a fairer, freer society.

In addition, crypto is not a solution for the unbanked, because by its deflationary design it cannot function as a currency. It is therefore unusable as a scalable means for purchasing goods and services.

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Claim: Crypto is an anti authoritarian force

Description

According to this claim, cryptocurrencies provide a privacy-friendly way to store or transfer funds in situations where the state is an adversary – for example, when opposing a repressive regime.

Evaluation: Mostly False

Crypto has very limited potential as an anti-authoritarian force. More importantly, any positive value is heavily outweighed by the potential downside in terms of enabling malign uses: money-laundering, fraud, terrorism etc. In summary:

  • the malign uses outnumber the benign;
  • Bitcoin is traceable;
  • for most uses, Bitcoin must be cashed out by those in charge of the monetary supply, most often the very regime the transferor is seeking to circumvent.
  • the argument for bitcoin as a hedge against authoritarianism suffers from fallacy of composition and selection bias.

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Claim: Web3 is a means to accelerate the collapse of capitalism and rebuild the global financial system

Description

This claim is based on the notion that we need to reconfigure the entire global economy and that Crypto can lead us there. Whatever happens on the other side of that financial reconfiguration can only be better than what we currently have.

Advocates argue that we can reinvent money independent of existing power structures and that by doing so we can redefine value and power and achieve a fairer distribution of wealth.

Evaluation: False

Crypto is not a means to accelerate the collapse of capitalism. The crypto ideology is an extension of the neoliberal project that aims to expand the scope and reach of markets to all aspects of human life, a concept often referred to as hyperfinancialization. Since crypto tokens aim to expand the scope of capitalism, they cannot bring about anything but more capitalism.

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Claim: NFTs are good for artists

Description

This claim is based on the notion that Web3 can create an economy where workers/creators can own the means of production. This claim argues that NFTs can facilitate a fairer deal for artists.

Evaluation: False

The economic structure of NFTs is almost identical to that of multilevel marketing schemes. NFTs are a form of predatory inclusion that on average does not liberate artists. Instead most artists will engage in the token sales at a loss, making almost nothing in return.

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Claim: Web3 is a means to dismantle the American tech hegemony

Description

This claim is premised on the notion that web3 technology can be used to build a decentralized web, which will hand back agency to individual users and will dismantle the monopoly held by companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon.

Evaluation: False

Web3 is not a means to disrupt the American tech hegemony. Blockchain technologies have intractable scalability problems; the only means by which they can scale is by recentralization thereby recreating just another corporate monolith.

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Aspiration 3: Financial Gain Through Financial Liberty

Claim: Traders and investors can make large financial gains in free, unregulated crypto-markets

Description

This claim is rooted in the notion that unfettered and unregulated markets are efficient markets; unregulated markets allow companies to do what they're supposed to do, which is maximize returns to shareholders. As the crypto markets are currently unregulated, those who subscribe to the market fundamentalist ideology argue that these markets therefore have the potential to make those who invest in crypto assets a lot of money. The trader or market fundamentalist view likely represents a majority of interest and activity in crypto.

Evaluation: Mostly False

Markets work best when we have abundant public information and minimize fraud and collusion in price formation. Due to the unregulated nature of crypto markets, the markets are rife with fraud and asymmetric information. We also have no idea how much leverage is baked into the system due to the existence of complex financial instruments built upon assets with no fundamental value. The result is inequality (money flows to the sharks), individual and systemic risk, and moral hazard.

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Aspiration 4: Overcoming governance problems

Claim: Web3 can revolutionize systems of governance and thus facilitate cooperative solutions to collective action problems

Description

This claim argues that blockchain technology can support more democratic, distributed governance and that, by revolutionizing systems of governance, web3 can facilitate cooperative solutions to collective action problems such as climate change.

Evaluation: Mostly False

While there are examples of DAOs facilitating distributed governance, we have not managed to find an instance of blockchain technology being used to solve a collective action problem.

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Aspiration 5: Innovation and Progress

Claim: Web3 is an inevitable paradigm shift akin to the Industrial Revolution

Description

This claim argues that web3 is the path which progress is taking. Historical inventions like the printing press were fraught with concern and risk, and yet humanity survived those paradigm shifts. Blockchain technology is no different than the printing press. We can’t stop runaway phenomena. We simply have to embrace them.

Evaluation: False

Blockchain technology, detached from the sale of crypto assets, has shown no track record of providing benefit for any real world applications. A financial system rooted in blockchain technology is not desirable and the dream of revolutionary systems of governance built on blockchain technology which can support the solving of public goods problems and collective action problems remains unrealized.

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