Ever since NFTs started getting hyped up in early 2021, somewhere around the time of the Beeple sale (which is its own rabbit hole) I've been obsessed with the crypto/NFT space. Watching it from an outside perspective is so morbidly fascinating that I could probably consider it a mental health hazard, and even now it feels as if it's only getting worse, which is why I started to write this: I have way too much to say, and nobody to say it to, because what self-respecting queer leftist would want to spend their time watching Youtube videos by young right-wing men talking about their 4x 10x decentralized Lambo HODL NFT-flipping meta, anyway?
The real reason I'm writing this right now, is that my Youtube recommendations are destroyed by videos related to the collapse of one of the largest (next to Binance, which may be next to go, imo) cryptocurrency exchanges: FTX. I had already messed with my recommendations by watching the sort of cryptocurrency content that exploded during the 2020-2021(?) bull run
Reading the comments of any given video provides a window into a dystopian community utterly overrun by scams and fraud (except "overrun" would imply that at one point there weren't scammers), where half of the comments will be filled with spam bots telling you about “Mr. Grayson's Crypto trading method that earned me $3,000 in the first two weeks!", and the other half will be filled with young men absolutely heaping praise on the creator of whatever video they're watching (which I want to get to later, related to the sort of hero worship and lack of critical thinking, and that Crypto Bros engage in), as well as how they've normalized talking about conspiracy theories so openly and casually that it makes me feel like i'm in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. It freaks me out to see how far from grounded they are, and how insulated their bubbles are that they can't see it.
42% of men ages 18 to 29 say they have [used cryptocurrency, followed by 33% of men 30 to 49, and 17% of women age 18 to 29], according to a survey of over 10,000 U.S. adults from Pew Research.
There's something really bizarre that I'm struggling to articulate yet, that feels like it unifies the weird amount of praise (and how similar the praise always sounds [screenshots to be added]) that they give to these Youtubers, and their desire to believe in simplistic, thriller-movie-esque conspiracies about political corruption, while ignoring the reality in front of their faces. It's difficult to discuss without going down a lot of various rabbit holes: tunnels that seem to be converging, or maybe just destabilizing the ground under us by digging it so full of burrows, so far from reality, that even people on the surface are feeling the instability now, whether we want to pay attention or not)
What are Crypto Bros?
This is a complicated word to define, and in reality, this has no set definition. However, I tend to use it to refer to two (sometimes overlapping) groups of people who are often men, often between the ages of 18 and 50 (Survey from Pew Research), often cishet, and usually in tech or "into tech".
The first type of Crypto Bro, as far as I'm concerned, is the more economically privileged. What distinguishes this Crypto Bro from other crypto adopters/investors/users is the economic privilege and influence within their spheres, and the association with things like Silicon Valley, programming, startups, FANG etc. These Crypto Bros are more tech savvy, they are "influencers" who shape the opinions of their followers in terms of Crypto, but also in terms of political philosophy (whether consciously or unconsciously) and are often public figures in Silicon Valley or other big tech hotspots. They may genuinely believe in the core values associated with crypto (decentralization, trustlessness, libertarian anarcho-capitalism, etc.), or they may be a completely cynical scammer/schemer; in my experience there seems to make very little difference materially.
The second type is the crypto bro who follows the first type. When I originally watched Dan Olson's video Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs, I was skeptical of one claim that he made:
For example, the basic psychological profile of the average [Crypto/NFT] buyer is someone who is tenuously middle class, socially isolated, and highly responsive to memes.
They are someone who has very little experience with real businesses and production processes, thus are unlikely to be turned off by unrealistic claims about future returns.
They are insecure about their lack of knowledge, and this makes them very susceptible to flattery, in particular being reassured that the only reason for negativity is because critics just don't understand.
Being tenuously middle class gives them enough disposable income to engage with a pretty expensive system, but also a very potent anxiety about their financial future.
It goes without saying that they're fixated on money, and they principally understand the technology as a means of making money.
Criticism of the system is typically met with confusion.
Don't you want to make money?
While the second paragraph rang true if the constant, constant rug pulls and other scams were any indication. Most Crypto Bros seemed not to bat an eyelash at NFT projects that promised a movie, an animated show, a video game, merch, IRL meetups, and Passive Income, and all you have to do is buy their randomly generated PFP NFT.
What I was unsure about, was the psychological analysis, which I thought seemed potentially biased and harsh, or maybe just a little bit too much like playing armchair psychologist.
Anyway, I was wrong! While this doesn't describe absolutely every single person into cryptocurrency, in my experience (of lurking on Youtube videos, Twitter and Reddit threads, reading news sites, etc.), there is, in from my own perspective, anyway, truth to the idea that there is a tendency toward hero worship, susceptibility to flattery, and what appears to me like a generally shallow understanding of the world as it exists outside their experience.
Side note: I've noticed these scams tend to use women's names.
FTX and SBF
One question on which I've seen widespread speculation is whether Bankman-Fried thought it was okay to do unethical things “for the greater good” — a position that hardcore utilitarians, which Bankman-Fried has identified as in the past, might hold.
That question happens to be one I had asked him in the interview this summer, which I had just relistened to the night before our Twitter conversation. At the time, of course, I thought the ethical dilemma where Bankman-Fried had perhaps crossed a line was whether it was acceptable to run a cryptocurrency exchange in the first place — and whether the good he claimed he meant to do made it okay.
A lot of people, I said to Bankman-Fried in that earlier interview, would think of “starting a crypto company to make billions of dollars the way I would think of starting a tobacco company to make billions of dollars: deeply immoral. Presumably, there's some line where you shouldn't do something that bad even for good reasons. I'm curious whether you think there's some line? And if so, where would you draw that line?”
"There is some line,"" he told me then. “The answer can't be there is no line. Or else, you know, you could end up doing massively more damage than good. And I think more generally, you could say, okay, fine, but just, like, subtract that out. But I don't think it's that simple, either. Because there are a lot of complicated but important second-order harms that come if your core business is bad for the world, in terms of your ability to work with partners and your ability to work with partners in your philanthropic efforts.
SBF and politics
SBF publicly donating money to Democrat politiciains became a fixation after the FTX collapse. Conspiracies about SBF/FTX's involvement with the Ukraine, Joe Biden, and more, drawn through tenuous logic by people who feel like they're getting their analytical skills from an episode of 24.
"Let me ask you guys a question: do you think that a billion dollars of dark money could stop a red wave [in the 2022 US Midterm election]?" asks a man in a Zoom call with several other men, all presented as experts, and uncritically in the Youtube video ""SBF Paid Kevin O'Leary With Stolen Money From FTX Users" - Chamath Palihaptiya", despite the fact that 1. SBF has stated that his public committments to "progressive" causes/politics were "what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those who get fucked by it. by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us" (source: SFTX's Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Made Secret Donations to Republicans by Matt Novak)).
Glossary
- Bull Run/Bull Market
- Refers to a period of time (a "run"), and/or the state of the market (in this case the Crypto market) when "assets" (in this case, cryptocurrencies and/or NFTs, etc.) rising in value, and confidence is high. The opposite is a "bear market".
- Bear Market
- Refers to a market (in this case the Crypto market) in which "assets" (in this case, cryptocurrencies and/or NFTs, etc.) are losing value, and confidence among investors is low.
- FANG
- F.A.N.G. is an acronym that stands for "Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google", four of the most prominent and "prestigious" US tech companies, that bros in tech often want to work for.
- Rug Pull
- Slang term referring to blockchain/NFT-based projects that raise a bunch of money at the beginning, usually promising some unrealistically large number of future benefits for those who "get in early" (weaponizing FOMO is not only standard practice in the NFT space, but actively encouraged), only to abscond with the money, leaving the buyers with worthless NFTs and/or other crypto tokens. Refers to "pulling the rug out from under someone".
- PFP
- P.F.P is an acronym that stands for "ProFile Picture"
- Owlman
- A giant owl-like creature.