Peer-to-peer over politics

Politics are getting weirder. Can peer-to-peer decentralized systems offer a solution?

I’m trying out a slightly altered newsletter setup. Let me know what you think.

THE WEEK

In this issue

Dispatches: Manufacturing picks and shovels is a good way to make money during a gold rush.
Free resource: Keep track of what’s going on with Base
Framework: Peer-to-peer over politics
Backdated: Get caught up on recent posts

DISPATCHES

News from the frontier

Is Nvidia a crypto stock? New recipes for an overcooked AI stock.
Crypto fraud reached epic levels last year. An FBI report concluded that Americans lost $5.6 billion to crypto scammers in 2023. But that’s just the reported amount, not the actual amount. Yikes.
Bitcoin gets a new wrapper. Coinbase launched cbBTC as a new way to issue wrapped bitcoin. Wrapped bitcoin makes BTC interoperable with other smart contracts, extending its utility. But there are concerns.
Is the metaverse back? Web3 gaming is making a comeback, but it’s still not clear how the tokenomics behind “play to earn” actually works.

RESOURCE

A based database

Coinbase recently wrapped up “Onchain Summer” a months-long global hackathon to get more people building on Base.

But more in the spirit of “Endless Summer,” I created a database of more than 400 projects building on Base.

I put this database together for my own research, but it wound up surfacing so much new info and ideas that I thought I would share it.

The database exists as a Notion table. Let me know how you end up using it.

Get access

OPEN MONEY

Can peer-to-peer replace politics?

It’s still hard to tell if crypto is a legitimate political issue or more of a sideshow in the run-up to the presidential election in the United States.

This week, the debate between candidates became a focal point in the news cycle.

The debate broke new ground for lots of reasons but failed to provide clarity on deep tech or what future innovation could look like.

But not talking about issues, or bringing them into the light, doesn’t mean they go away.

Globally, people are building a new internet. It’s inevitable at this point that new kinds of decentralized technology will replace legacy systems based on mass media and corporate-controlled models.

In other words, peer-to-peer platforms will get to the point where they offer legitimate alternatives to centralized models.

Peer-to-peer is characterized by efficiency.

Attributes of decentralized tech, like modular, layered blockchain stacks and zero-knowledge proofs, will also make it possible for people to control their data, make new kinds of digital security possible, and create new internet-native economic activities.

Here are a few examples of how this works:

The shift to peer-to-peer computing has been underway for more than a decade.

The move toward decentralization is a fuzzy movement in part because its name keeps changing. It feels shape-shifty mainly because new narratives and new use cases keep emerging (crypto, web3, onchain, etc., are all examples).

And, sometimes, new names emerge to provide distance from failed experiments or outright fraud, which are both part of the early days of transitioning from centralized to decentralized systems.

While the movement to peer-to-peer has been bumpy so far, the issues getting worked through right now will undoubtedly impact the future trajectory of global economic power and political control.

Why peer-to-peer matters

Here’s a rough sketch of why peer-to-peer matters why it is so significant for the future of the internet and how it relates to the Open Money framework:

Peer-to-peer enables decentralized tech across all levels of the internet from finance to gaming. Peer-to-peer creates technology that is empowering because permissionless systems equalize access. Additionally, the ability to self-custody digital assets creates new security and privacy dynamics which will help prevent some of the most common and avoidable cyber crimes.
The way we understand community is changing. In-person communities are changing. Not all of the changes have to do with technology. As our in-real-life communities change, new kinds of digital spaces are emerging. We’ll dive into these digital third spaces in the future, but for now, it makes intuitive sense that we will need better, more peer-to-peer tools for digital communities to be healthy and useful. It would be weird if the bulk of our future communities were controlled or sponsored by corporate platforms and also used as advertising platforms.
The move to a decentralized internet will create new jobs, roles, and new kinds of economic activity. While these new activities won’t directly replace jobs and livelihoods lost to the digital transformation, they will create net new economies and innovations such as gaming for good, pop-up apps, temporal projects, and memes that matter.

Checks and balances

Even if the peer-to-peer model feels a little wishy-washy and you would prefer sharing your life with faceless corporations headquartered in Delaware, there is still one compelling reason why moving to direct lines of communication and interaction makes sense.

If nothing else, peer-to-peer interactions will create a boom in efficiency and improve the overall security and usability of the internet, eventually creating new kinds of opportunities.

The move to decentralized, peer-to-peer platforms is already underway. The shift is happening globally and it will happen even if we don’t talk about it, or even if we elect politicians who don’t have anything meaningful to say about it.