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My goal is to bring diverse minds together to accelerate our web3 education to build a better future. My hope is that these recaps will be in service of that objective.
Here is today’s roadmap:
Article: Canada & Crypto
Tweet: Ukraine/Russia & Crypto
Podcast: Zuckerburg & Lex Fridman
P.S. If you are new here, take a look through this web3 starter guide to get caught up to speed :)
I am feeling a level of cognitive dissonance as I write this. I’m sitting in a nice apartment in SF, it’s warm, and I’m safe. My family is okay and so are my friends. My heart goes out to the families impacted in Ukraine and around the world. Also thinking about all of the other people in countries affected by unwarranted foreign aggression like Afghanistan, Syria, and other countries I may be forgetting.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether I should send this week’s newsletter. The best writing advice I’ve gotten is to write for yourself. This is what I am doing today. I’m trying my best to digest the ongoing news in the world. With this ongoing crisis heavy on my heart and mind, I'll be spending today's piece seeking to understand some components of the sanctions and financial restrictions that have come out around the world, with a focus on web3.
Article:
Trucker crypto crackdown in Canada fuels GOP backlash in U.S.
There’s a common trope in cryptocurrency land: “not your keys, not your crypto”. This means that if you do not hold your cryptocurrency in your wallet (e.g. MetaMask) and instead hold it in an exchange (e.g. Coinbase, Robinhood, etc), then you do not own the asset. This has always confused me. Outside of playing around with buying NFTs and messing around with DeFi applications, I have no desire to hold my crypto in my own wallet. Doing so leads to risks. One of those risks is if you lose your private key (i.e. password). There’s no forgot password option, there’s no one to call, you’re on your own. Why would I want that? I personally hold ~70% of my crypto assets in centralized exchanges; am I even a web3 enthusiast…?
I’m starting to understand this “not your key, not your crypto” statement over the past few weeks. The first came from Canada, the second from Russia. One is kind of good & bad, one is bad. Let me explain.
Canada has been having protests over the past few months against the Covid 19 vaccine mandates. The initial convoy of truckers (called the Freedom Convoy) was created to protest vaccine mandates for crossing the United States border, but evolved into a protest about vaccine mandates in general. Beginning January 22, hundreds of vehicles formed convoys from several points and traversed Canadian provinces before converging on Ottawa on January 29, 2022, with a rally at Parliament Hill. The convoys were joined by thousands of pedestrian protesters (read more here).
The Canadian government wanted to stop those protests and one of the actions they took was to shut down the bank accounts of the people who were protesting. By doing so, they would leave those protesters with no option but to stop protesting and get back to work. In my mind, I think it’s fair to pause protests for a societal nuisance. But freezing the bank accounts of those protesters irked me.
It’s important to think through the inverse situation. Imagine during the height of the BLM movement in 2020, protesters' bank accounts were frozen. I'd personally have a deeper emotional reaction not only because it is a movement with values I believe in, but because it would bear financial consequences to a group fighting for basic racial equality. Today the Canadian government wants truck protestors to stop protesting and freeze their bank accounts. What happens in the future when governments don't agree with your values (e.g. fighting racial injustice) and they shut down your finances? How would you feel?
“See, if you held your own crypto, you wouldn't be impacted by this!”
I am Canadian and I trust the Canadian government. I’m quite a fan of other centralized organizations like the company I work at. Although, the consequences of this decision will be interesting to monitor. Will this lead to more people using cryptocurrencies? Will the Canadian government make it illegal to hold crypto on a decentralized wallet? How will this impact how the US creates its own rules and regulations? Lots of open questions.
This is a complicated topic that will take weeks and months to contemplate, not days. As I was still digesting this news cycle a much larger one kicked off….
Tweet:
Oof this is a tough one. To date, $16m USD has been raised for organizations supporting this crisis. That’s a good thing, right?
At the same time, Russia could use crypto to blunt the force of US sanctions. That’s a bad thing right?
I feel the need to keep coming back to the following point:
“If you look deep enough you can see the potential of these new technologies, or you might see the opposite. Just like any new technology (e.g. social media), both can be true. It’s up to the early builders and users to dictate which direction this goes.
People feel the need to pick a side. Like most areas of life, the reality of web3 is somewhere in the middle (albeit trending positively). Instead of trying to state why the other side is wrong let’s try to learn from one another.”
Web3/crypto is happening regardless of whether we want it to or not. In the future, more citizens and countries will hold reserves in crypto. Crypto is a tool like steel, cars, and the rest of the technology industry. Steel can be used to construct bridges and it can be used to make tanks. Crypto is similar to any other tool in this sense - it can be a tool for progress or bringing down society. It’s important to be aware of both sides of this argument, and do our best to shape it in a way that will be better for society.
Podcast:
As you can tell, I tried to have a measured take on most topics. That includes my impression of Mark Zuckerburg and Meta. Working at a large tech company I can empathize with how difficult his life and his career must be. I also have disagreed with a few of his previous decisions; especially related to his stance on a few civil rights issues (more reading here and here). I’ve had friends that have worked (or still work) at Meta and they enjoy what they do. Amongst all of that, I’ve been curious about Zuckerburg’s life.
What’s his day-to-day like? How stressed is he? How does he think about raising children? Why has he made the decisions he has? This podcast humanized him for me. It gave me a glimpse of how hard some of these broader societal questions facing Meta are.
My criticism of Zuckerburg has waned slightly, but that isn’t my goal in sharing this. I think it’s important we listen to what he speaks about because he is building the future and has an outsized influence on our world today given how far-reaching Meta’s products are.
Lastly, the interviewer Lex Fridman is one of my favorites. He balances compassion with rigor and curiosity well. Hope you enjoy it.
Bonus:
That does it for this week of Web3 Wednesdays.
Till next time,
Jay 💕