#13 Crypto for President!

How crypto can fix our politics

Nov 10, 2021

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1 Concept 💡

If you strip away all the noise and bluster, human politics are fundamentally rooted around economic policy. Specifically, it’s about making a choice: do we wanna optimize for the group or the individual? It turns out there’s no right answer - it depends on what you value more and the trade-offs you’re willing to make. As a result, there are a wide spectrum of approaches to choose from (see diagram below) from socialism which prioritizes the collective well-being of the group to libertarianism which prioritizes individual above all. Granted, my descriptions of these approaches are generalized and the inner-workings are much more nuanced, but you get the idea.

History has shown that the extremes on either side don’t sustain over time. In socialist countries, too much focus on the group doesn’t provide the right incentives for progress and leaves people too reliant on the government/system - even if no one is left behind. On the other end, it’s all about survival of the fittest: incentives drive incredible progress but a wealth chasm forms and causes suffering and resentment for people on the wrong side of it.

Instead, we make trade-offs. Europeans and progressives in the US (left-wing of the Democratic party) largely believe we should redistribute wealth more equitably to invest in social services within a capitalist, market-based economy to make the group stronger. On the other hand, conservative Republicans desire less intervention and more of a winner-take-all approach, but still want a social safety net (Medicare, etc) to exist. And everywhere in between.

Fundamentally however, one has to make a choice on the collective vs. the individual, and then make trade-offs from there. But what if you could have your cake and eat it too?

Crypto for Prez

In contrast, crypto offers the ability to optimize for BOTH the group and individual through its unique properties:

Shared ownership - Crypto leverages the power of network effects by allowing everyone in the network (users, developers, investors, miners, etc) to participate via a token. The token provides aligned incentives making the network stronger and provides a win-win. Contrast this to current economic models where users (whether of an app, renting a house, or a fan of an artist) are consumers only and don’t participate in the upside.
Fractional ownership - Crypto natively supports everyone to participate by enabling fractional ownership (check out our fun post on this) of tokens. No matter who you are, you can have 10% of your net worth in a token such as Bitcoin, whether you’re worth $10,000 or $10 billion dollars. We’re on the same playing field and rooting for the same outcome.
Tokenization of the world - As the world moves rapidly to web3, you’ll see everything becoming tokenized: real estate, communities, platforms, sports teams, companies, art and more. This provides people with the ability to participate in literally an infinite array of options leading to infinite ways to make money.

Through these forces, crypto enables progressivism and free market capitalism at the same time:

“The world is wildly polarized right now — left and right — but I think what [crypto] is doing is actually creating something that only exists in some places, which is that it’s progressive because it allows participation of everybody in this society and it allows society to set rules, but it’s also free market capitalism at the same time.”
Raoul Pal

For example, this week’s airdrop of $ENS wasn’t a gift to ENS users who registered for .eth (including learnhax.eth!) - rather, as @julien51 articulately describes below, it’s a reward to early users:

Jᵾlien Genestoux @julien51

Airdrops are not "gifts" 🎁. They are rewards for building value in a network. 📠 Let me tell you about the first person who bought a fax machine. 🧵

In crypto, everyone can be a winner, everyone can make money, and there doesn’t have to be a distinction between the “haves” and the “have nots”. Rather, crytpo engenders a real sense of community and perhaps more importantly, a positive-sum mindset. Everyone is rooting for each other and we’re all in this together. Literally, we’re all gonna make it #wagmi.

Doesn’t this sound like a much better political landscape than the one we have today?

Crypto for president! 📈

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