Background
Friends and family will know that I’d gone down the ‘crypto rabbit hole’ in 2020, and I acknowledge I have positive bias for cryptocurrencies.
When we’d discuss topics like cryptocurrency, Bitcoin or Ethereum many times the comments were quite negative:
- Cryptocurrencies are scams and many projects are fraudulent
- Cryptocurrencies are pure speculation and promoted by individuals with vested interests.
- The user experience is clunky, it’s ‘tech by techies’
- As a Western person, it’s difficult to see what cryptocurrencies are for..
Meanwhile, while I see much validity in the criticisms, I was also disappointed, as it felt like a chasm of understanding.
My perception when I look at the current financial system is not flattering:
- how the current financial system is skewed towards already rich asset owners
- how wage earners have been basically shafted for the past 50 years
- Every adult KNOWS that government fiat money is printed out of thin air, and many just accept the price gyrations and inflation that follow
- Powerful intermediaries like banks, Wall Street use their power to cozy up to government and regulators, while curtailing innovation.
Just two brief charts here to illustrate the scope of the problems:
Chart 1: Networth of the top 0.1% of society tracking money printing:
Chart 2: Net Productivity and Average compensation trending closely 1948 to 1971. After 1971 productivity kept increasing, but Average compensation lagged badly.
Since 1971 we have seen the link between productivity growth and wages get severed. Productivity growth occurs when on an aggregate level in society, in companies we become more efficient, we can do more with less, whether it’s from working smarter , automating more processes etc. As we see from the chart this relationship used to track almost 100%. So some-one other than wage-earners must then reap the benefits of productivity growth.
I believe there is something fundamentally wrong in the current economic, financial system, and I intend to show in the book how what we consider ‘money’ is at the root of the problems.
While cryptocurrencies are no panacea, I see tremendous promise for cryptocurrencies:
- how crypto can be part of solution to help curtail money printing, restore fiscal discipline
- how crypto can bring economic freedom and opportunities around the world
- how crypto can help decentralize and guide AI
- how crypto can help skew the incentives towards wage earners again
- how crypto can finally reduce the power of intermediaries with non-custodial, peer-to-peer technology.
‘Understanding Crypto’ book
So in March 2024 I set out to help bridge this divide with a book that covers the main aspects of these issues. The goal of the book is to try to give a smart person an overview of the entire space. If some-one is very familiar with cryptocurrencies they should recognize a lot material, but hopefully also gain new perspectives.
Right now the book is split into four parts:
Part 1: Exploring the history of money, history of financial systems and defining what is money. Included are definitions of relevant concepts such as fractional reserve banking, quantitative easing and inflation.
Part 2: A critique of the current financial system arguing it benefits asset owners and governments at the expense of wage earners and savers. Included are charts and statistics from around the world to support the arguments.
Part 3: Covers the foundational cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin and Ethereum – in detail, and provides example use cases in Finance, Social, Culture etc. It also covers the moral case for cryptocurrencies, and explains new concepts such as NFTs, DAOs and what the hell are LPs?
Part 4: Explores future scenarios of adoption and how cryptocurrencies play into the global currency arena, with some possible future scenarios.
I would be thrilled if you gave your email and joined me on this journey to ‘Understanding Crypto’ better.