This Week in Startups
Host: Jason Calacanis and Molly Wood
Guest: Molly White
Ukraine
Solicited crypto donations and received millions which was withdrawn (proving that crypto can work in adverse situations)
Binance donating $10M
PussyRiot raised $3M through a DAO for war effort
Molly White – Wikipedia editor, software engineer
Saw web3 broadening in a scary way
Launched https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ to highlight the scams and shady behaviors
A lot of tech grouped into web3 umbrella that isn’t new – ledgers aren’t new; internet payment protocols aren’t new
What’s new is cryptocurrencies – but she doesn’t believe there’s a future
Take a tech problem, add blockchain tech, and raise millions
Most can do better with different database structure
Jason: immutable database is inferior tech in 99% of cases
True believers are less common these days
Usually they’re not shilling NFTs
To truly understand web3, need to understand tech, law, economics, many domains
In a normal world, you should be concerned if you’re selling something and you can’t explain why (“why do you need a blockchain?”)
Jason: bitcoin toxicity is an explicit philosophy among maxis
Another concern – Wash trading / painting the tape (trading with yourself back and forth to pump price, or with other insiders / whales)
Melania Trump – sold a watercolor NFT, but if you analyze the blockchain data, it seems like she just bought her own NFT
Celebrity grifts – De’Aaron Fox (NBA player) did an NFT project and suddenly abandoned it (a rug pull)
web3 founders seem to believe that normal laws don’t apply – eg, copyright law
class action lawsuits have been filed, eg, Kim Kardashian
Jason: in middle of ICO lawsuits now, and NFT lawsuits will be coming in a few years
“it’s a cult”
bitcoin is good store of value, hasn’t been hacked, easy to trade
If economy collapses (Mad Max), how will bitcoin really be useful?
Energy use
Proof of work has to be increasingly energy intensive, otherwise it doesn’t work
You can’t mine on home PC anymore
What about developing economies / authoritarian regimes?
Bitcoin has more use, but exposed to new types of risk (how to actually convert to fiat, price volatility)
eg, Canadian trucker protests – difficulties withdrawing bitcoin to cash
DAOs
Why are smart contracts and blockchains required for self governance?
Most DAOs are – buy token, token = vote
Someone hijacked a DAO by buying up a lot of tokens and then drained its treasury
Self governing communities are very difficult
To believe in pure decentralization / immutability, you have to be very extreme
True believers are more libertarian / anarchist
But newer ones try to parrot it but don’t realize the drawbacks / tradeoffs
Jason: BAYC founders not happy they were doxxed – but it’s a billion dollar project!
Even doxxing has been subverted – it’s serious and egregious
But in crypto doxxing can be good – because the founders aren’t anon
BuzzFeed doxxing of BAYC was very easy / light – but reporter was aggressively doxxed in return
A lot of them are very very young – 19yo and controlling $2M