Crypto hackers don't care about your libertarian ideology
For this episode I spoke to Jaya Klara Brekke (@jayapapaya), an academic researcher on crypto and Head of Strategy at NYM who recently gave the keynote speech for the Haus Der Kunst DAO Summit. During the interview we spoke about her skepticism and cautious optimism she mentioned in the keynote speech, the contradictory feelings on the market as someone who was raised in traditional leftist spaces mentioned in her article in the Agorism in the 21st Century Journal, and how many critics...
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Transcript
So hello again. You are listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. And for today's guest, I have Jaya Clara Brekka. She is, working in strategy at NIM and is a researcher having worked in academia quite a bit beforehand, and has released or published quite a lot of very interesting articles about Bitcoin, sort of in the very early days and has a lot of really interesting thoughts both from, I think, a, a critical point of view. I've seen you write before. And then also sort of, like, maybe a little bit of cautious optimism that I think is, really interesting that I wanted to sort of dive into a little bit deeper with you. But yeah. Hi, Jia. How are you doing? Hello. Thank you for inviting me.
And it's good to be on this specific podcast because I feel it is a podcast that, provides a space for, people like me who I've started to kind of call, the rigorous fence sitters. So people who keep a a a critical foot outside of the whole crazy world of crypto, and a kind of foot inside the messy, the messy parts of it trying to actually make something, out of that mess.
Yeah. Thanks. I mean, it's definitely an extremely niche podcast,
I think.
But I like to think that it is, helpful in in some ways, and doing sort of the thing that I think, at least when I read some of your work, that you seem to want to do, which is to, like, hold space for discussion and debate, both critical and maybe optimistic. But maybe to start off, I think it'd be really interesting just to hear from you your story on how you got into cryptocurrency world so early. Yeah. Since yeah. I think everybody always has, like, an interesting story about that.
Yeah. So I got into crypto. I mean, I guess I read the Bitcoin white paper maybe for the first time around 2010. And then 2011 something around 2011, 2012, I kind of read it in more detail. I was at the time, I was I was, taking part in a European research project called D. C. E. N. T, which stands for decentralized citizen engagement technologies. And it was a project, led by Francesca Bria, current president of the National Italian Innovation Fund, and also a very interesting character. It's definitely worth diving into her history and the work that she's been doing with Evgeny Morozov, who runs the syllabus. She she her and and some other kind of quite forward thinking partners at that time started this project, and it was one of the first kind of major ambitious projects that really dealt with the question of the politics around the data economy. So the emerging data economy, looking at who has control over data, and how the kind of economics around that can be reorganized. And one of the partners in the project was a a kind of a super interesting group called Dyna, which is a think and do tank, led by also another very, early Bitcoin person, Jaromil,
who I had on, who, I posted interviews very recently. Yes. Yep. Exactly.
So I got to know Jaramillo as at, as part of the decent project and, really look closely at the Bitcoin white paper because of him. And, you know, the Bitcoin white paper and the kind of, let's say, the blockchain, at that time was something that people in the in the decent project were looking to kind of, reconfigure, for various, social currency and new data economy experiments. So these were kind of, like, some of the kind of, I mean, before the kind of big crypto boom, it was really like the early, altcoins or the early kind of, like, innovative uses of blockchain that was then very quickly kind of overtaken by, other dynamics. But so, yeah, that was that was my introduction to crypto. And a few years later, I, I decided to write a PhD on the topic. So I did, I wrote a PhD that was a political analysis of the Bitcoin protocol and the Ethereum protocol and happened to write that PhD thesis or be doing my research exactly during the height of the Bitcoin scaling conflict and during the height of the Ethereum DAO hack. And those two events were super fascinating and super interesting for me because it was my PhD was essentially kind of drawing out a lot of the technological determinism at the core of the proposition of both Bitcoin and Ethereum. And what was interesting about these events was it really showed the kind of the politics of these architectures. Right? It really showed how even when we're or perhaps especially when we're developing infrastructure and hard coded infrastructure, the question of who that infrastructure really benefits and how it might be reconfigured to benefit other types of people becomes a a question of of governance, a question of politics, that cannot be kind of just solved through more and more decentralization or or more and more technological solutionism. So these were two pivotal moments, I think, in the maturity of the the thinking in the whole space and really brought the question of governance to the foreground.
Yeah. I I thought it was it's, like, those events, I think, are interesting because you have this maybe, like, strong group of crypto enthusiasts who tend to like to, focus that crypto is apolitical or, you know, that almost like they're trying to decentralize their way out of politics. Exactly. Which is like it's it's really interesting. But then that always comes to, like yeah. There's always an issue that pops up. For example, with the scaling issue with the Bitcoin scaling, of course, you had people had different ideas and visions and therefore, like, make up different maybe, political camps in some, like, small type of way. And same with the DAO hack. And then I don't know if recently you saw I just another thing that I think is also kind of related is really interesting in the, Juno network, which is, like, one of, it's like one of the blockchains within the Cosmos ecosystem. They recently voted to, like, expropriate the wealth of one of the whales of Juno who owes, like, 10% of the supply. Right. And, again, you see, like, these people being, like, you know, why are you bringing politics into this? You know, shouldn't we just leave it as it is? Because, like, you know, those are the rules in the beginning. But then it turns out that sort of, like, social or, like, human, interactions or, governance really sort of trumps this idea of, like, code is law. So there's there's this, like, conflict between code is law and no. We should build something for what we actually want rather than Yeah. I mean, the I think the
the code is law kind of perspective. It's just it's so it's so interesting. Right? Because it's just it's so kind of, like, time I mean, what people kind of, like, found when these two these two big events was that, you know, like, sure. Code is law, but, you know, at some point, code was also written, and many times it was written with a bunch of mistakes as well.
Yeah. So, like, I I reached out after I mean, I had read, like, a bunch of your work before, and then I was always, like, kinda nervous to reach out because I thought you were, like, way cooler than me for some reason. But after listening to your speech, with the events with Furtherfield, and I think they're called Der Hausskunst Yeah. Where you, like, really well articulated, I think, a lot of my own positions in just, like, a way that was, like, better than I could say it probably. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about I think it was I think it was an opening speech maybe, or one of that you gave about some of the things that you are cautiously optimistic about, but then as well sort of, like, the immediate things that you would like, I guess, people to understand about this world?
Yeah. I so I I did the the the opening keynote for this event, and it's an it's an event with a super interesting bunch of people that are essentially, led by, some artist groups that are looking at the use of DAOs to organize artist economies and govern, artist economies. So some very nice propositions there. So So and what I wanted to do was I I wanted to take these kind of three words or these, yeah, these three words that make out a DAO, right, a decentralization, organization, and autonomy, and talk a little bit about, the the kind of contradictory meanings that are often at play when people use these words. And I I mean, I spent most of that talk just talking about decentralization. I don't think I got to the other two concepts because there's so much. I mean, I think you could run, you know, three seminars on each. But, yeah, the point I was making really was I was drawing on the kind of history of, you know, my own experience with decentralization and decentralized organizing and decentralized politics as a as very much a response to power and to centralized power and to the concentration of power. And this is in kind of, like, my history of in in activism, let's say, more and and, yeah, being a kind of political activist when I was younger and, and how that kind of become became super enmeshed with a very different understanding of decentralization that comes from Hayekian economics and Hayekian political economy. And I wanted to kind of explain how those two two versions of decentralization, which, you know, really have been seen as, at the opposite end of this political spectrum, really kind of become enmeshed in the world of crypto. And people, you know, use the word decentralization sometimes to refer to others to one and and another and other times to the other. And so, yeah, in that talk, I really tried to just kind of, like, flesh out what are the kind of problems with with the Hayekian political economy, especially as it relates to the concept of decentralization as a form of direct democracy and how these things can actually really be, you know, very contradictory. And it's a political economy and it's a political history that is actually, like, should be foundational for anyone that's getting involved in this space, really, especially also because, you know, what we have is is a bunch of engineers that are tinkering around with with, essentially, with political economy, but with very little training, in that field. And so they kind of oftentimes draw, quite kind of haphazardly on, political economists that have been, you know, discredited for very good reasons, in the past, like, you know, twenty, thirty, forty years. Right. Yeah. So it's I think that's important because there is the legacy of the Hayekian economics is something that we're still living through. I mean, it's been hugely kind of damaging to a lot of societies. And so we need to really recognize those facts. Yeah. I think are are you saying that's,
like, people should learn about Hayek foundationally as a way to, discredit him?
Yeah. I mean, I think there's there's not enough I mean, I think I've been thinking that I need to write up, like, a kind of, like, spiffy counter to to Hayek because my problem I mean, my, you know, my problem is, like, I I mean, I personally I love reading Hayek, and I I also said that in the talk. Like, I enjoy reading Hayek, and I I enjoy reading white papers. And, you know, part of the reason why I enjoy reading these things is because they're they're super nice mental puzzles. Right? They're very kind of satisfactory as, you know, set of simple organizing principles that can be very kind of, elaborate and complex. You know? But, like, that is exactly also their danger because it paints this kind of, like, very, convincing picture of how the world operates. But in actual fact, you know, it's just this very particular weird, curious view on how the world should operate that then becomes very violent when it actually becomes deployed. And that's what we saw with with Hayek in, economics, you know, where essentially what happened, what has happened through through you know, especially in the adoption of Hayekian, economics in kind of neoliberal, policies is the kind of rollout of the market, and the market as a kind of decentralized information processor to, you know, across, like, entire parts of the world with, like, no consideration whatsoever about the kind of, the effects on on real people's lives.
Sometimes I feel, because I've talked to some people who are really into Hayek before, and I get the impression that for them, like, neoliberalism is not Hayekian. Like, it was, like a I don't know. Like like, they messed up Hayek's Hayek's what Hayek said, and then included the state too much. And that was the last straw. Exactly. It wasn't pure it wasn't pure enough. Right. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Pure. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, we you know, I think yeah. We can we can talk a bit more about the relationship between the state and the market as well. But, you know, I you know, the idea of having the idea of even being able to to impose, Hayekian markets without the brute force of the state to back it is just ridiculous. I mean, like, people just people just simply would not adopt it. You know? Spicy spicy for, Hayekins. Yeah. I mean, like, they're absolutely. It but it's also you know, it's I don't I don't see it. I don't see the counter attack to that. Like, you know, the
the, you know, there is no naturally emerging Hayekian market, you know. For, like, I guess what you mean is, like, the enforcement of private property.
The enforcement of private property. The enforcement of market relations across all, social dynamics is really at the you know, that's the kind of core assumption of of the Hayekian market. You know? Like, in in order for the market to for the market to operate as an effective decentralized information processor, you need the information to be plugged into that information processor, which means that you need more and more interactions and relationships to happen via the market. Mhmm. And that just simply you know, that's just it it just simply doesn't, you know, work out that way unless you have someone actually kind of, like, making sure that it does. Right. I mean, that might not be a state. It could be some other dude with a big gun. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, someone's gotta kind of, like, make people behave that way. Right.
Like, do you see I don't know, Hayekian thought like, do do you see do you see Hayekian thought being practiced or, like, realized through crypto? Like, do you think they actually achieved their Hayekian some of them, their, like, Hayekian dreams, so to say?
Well, I mean, you know, achieved the their dreams is is a bit kind of hard to say because, you know, you can't really I mean, to what extent. Right? Like, within certain kind of, like, within certain kind of bubbles. Yeah. Exactly. Because at the end of the day, like, you know, as a as a game, it's like, why not? Right? I mean, sure. Let's let's let's play a little Hayekian game, you know, within within some kind of, like, token economic system. Why not? Right? But, I mean, I think both the thinking and you know, we can re we can refer to to Hayek, but, like, game theory obviously also has a whole bunch of other authors and stuff. It's like there is, like, these there is these kind of bigger fields that, you know so in general, I would say, like, yes, the kind of the general idea of the market as an information processor is definitely present within most you know, a lot of thinking, in the crypto space. And, and also the market as a, behavioral engineering program is very much, present in in much of the kind of crypto space. You know, people people designing cryptoeconomic systems is are tend to be very concerned about how to make people behave correctly.
Right. Right. Yeah. So then, I guess, given that context of what these people are maybe trying to do, or how the crypto world acts, What are some of the things that give you cautious optimism that you mentioned in, in your talk? I Or things you would like to see? I think you kind of framed it. Things that I would like to see. I mean, I
you know, I think I've always been at the position that crypto raises all the right questions, but doesn't really provide the answers. Right? So it's not for me, like, crypto is not, like, the solution or anything, but it continues to raise all the right questions. And I and I really appreciate that about crypto, because it raises all the right questions, at all the at at all the right times. But I I think it is it is time now that, you know, that's been it's been doing that for a while. And and by that, I mean the right questions in terms of, power, in terms of the nature of money, in terms of what how money mediates social relationships, how market mediate social relationships. The fact that these things can be done differently, and the fact that we can come together in groups to do these things differently, and that we can come together and make decisions around how we wanna design those systems. I think all of that is, like, pretty fascinating and pretty major, and I'm pretty I feel pretty kind of positive about that. However, I do feel that the space of experimentation is way too small. And also experimentation taking place in the context of, you know, late stage capitalism and in the context of, well, now war and increasing nationalisms. I mean, there yeah. I say now war. There's been ongoing wars for for quite some time, but let's say the stakes of geopolitics has been is is upped, quite quite a bit in the past month. Yeah. That'll that, you know, that I think we can't ignore that broader context. So any idea that, like, okay. Great. You know, crypto just opens up a design space, and we can design utopias as much as as dystopias. Or let's say, you know, crypto might be looking pretty right wing right now, but we can encode some left wing politics into it, and then we'll be fine. It's like it that's we need to kinda wake up to the fact that that's not enough. Like, the context really matters. And the context is really shaping, you know, what what is likely to be successful and what's not gonna be successful in terms of economic designs in in the crypto space. And I think it's important to reflect on that for anyone who's trying to, push things in a in a kind of more, interesting direction politically speaking. Yeah. I've, So, yeah, I have I have conscious, I have cautious optimism still because why not? I mean, we need to kind of, like, keep plucking away at things. But, yeah, but I I I see the some very specific problems. Yeah.
I I I remember you had mentioned, like, like, mutual aid as being something you wanted to see more of during the talk, I believe.
Yeah. I mean, I in the talk, you know, there I was thinking in the very specific kind of use case of artists and artist led spaces. And so, you know, I think think ways of kind of, sharing economic resources across across borders and kind of creating kind of interest groups that are, let's say, creating interest groups that are able to govern their shared funds in in new and in and easy ways, I think, is, like, something that, like, allows for a type of, you know, a type of mutual aid that, like, can come to play a a pretty big role, as, like, regions and place like, in I think in we're gonna start to see kind of inequality, becoming exacerbated across, regions. And I think the ability to kind of, like, try and counterbalance that, through kind of networks of of mutual aid and I guess, like, yeah, just networks, communities of different of different forms,
is gonna be important. You know? Like I mentioned before, what I liked about your work is that you're you're much more willing to give crypto space, as, I guess, I could say, like, a left leaning academic, then, like, many others are sort of willing to from what I see. Where do you think some of these critics get wrong by trying to I think it seems to me that they're trying to, like, neatly fit the creation of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies into, like, neoliberalism or, like, fascism or something like that? Yeah. I'm curious your thoughts on that.
Yeah. I I mean, I guess, first, I think it's important to say that I tend to actually agree with most critics, but I'm always like, I agree with them, but you know? It's I agree with them, but it's not the full story. And I and I feel like shutting that shutting it down, to just the critique is just it's not yeah. It doesn't give the full story, and doesn't give the full story of of, what's, yeah, what's what's possible. And I guess I mean, where they get it wrong
Like, if I were to take a stab, I it seems to me that it's sort of like you sometimes people just, like, recognize certain patterns, in the crypto world that they already like, it looks like something else that they already know that they already know is, like, bad, And sort of, like, try to one for one lay that on top of and be, like, it's the same thing.
Yeah. I mean, it I it's a little bit I'm I'm gonna take my time to answer this question because it's it's kind of it relates to a lot of others thing things that are going on for me and I think for quite a few other people right now, which is the you know, having having been trained in critical thinking, having been having been trained in a kind of anti capitalist analysis, to put it bluntly. Like, that's kind of like the that is the knives those are the knives that have been sharpened. That is the kind of that is the perspective. Yeah. And although I think that I are very evident in in systems everywhere. And so I'm I'm personally less interested in kind of repeating the critical narrative over and over and over again, and I'm becoming much more interested in looking at what might potentially be new, what might different this time, where where might the potential openings be. And I know that that that's can be very hard, especially for, generations of people or, you know, people who have been who were, very involved in the early days of the Internet and feel like, you know, their early dreams were were smashed by what happened in both web two and now potentially web three as well. So, you know, I can understand where the cynicism comes from. I can understand the broken dreams. And I can and I take the the the critiques very seriously, because there's important lessons there, both the critiques that come from, you know, the kind of the economic side of things, but also the the technical side of things that, you know, decentralization is, you know, is a very naive position to take if that's what you think it all is the only thing that's at stake. You know? For sure. Yeah. So one of the ways that you
I that in one of your papers, it's called I have it right here. Hacker Engineers and Their Economies, the Political Economy of Decentralized Networks and Cryptoeconomics. But in that paper, you talk about almost like, we I used to call it you call it protagonist. You call it the hacker engineer, as sort of like a new protagonist in this world of decentralized networks and, I guess, largely in the context of cryptocurrency. But what do you think is sort of, like, particularly distinct about this class of people, maybe we could say, in this political, economy? Or, like, I guess, compared to other ones.
Yeah. Well, what I wanted to there was there are two things that I wanted to point to in this paper, and it actually relates very much to your previous question. I wanted to really push back on, you know, like, you know, I so so David of Columbia as an example. I I I love his work. I think his his, critiques of Bitcoin are are in many ways valid, and I know a lot of people in the Bitcoin space would would hate me for saying that. But, but I but I also wanted to push back on him in this, specifically, with this paper, exactly because it was, exactly because, like, I wanted to talk about this protagonist as having less of a you know? And here, I'm I'm not just talking about Bitcoin. I'm actually primarily talking about the rest of the crypto space. Like, the the engineers that I, see operating in this space that are designing token economic systems are simply less interested in the, you know, in right wing political economies, per se and much more interested in just tinkering with, you know, whatever economies. I mean, they see it as a design space. And I so I wanted to talk about I wanted to kind of, like, open up the space for engagement from, you know, by critical thinkers to be like, hey, man. Just get involved. Right? You don't have to kind of point out where things are are potentially getting too right wing or looking too much like Hayek or looking too much like Rothbard, you can actually you can actually get involved because what what this protagonist of the hacker engineer is is more interested in, or let's say the the dogmas, the political dogmas of the hacker engineer, that's involved in the crypto space has to do with decentralization. It has to do with cryptography and the power of these two things to to reshape, the balances of power in infrastructures and in monetary infrastructures and payment systems. And for me, it's like, man, that's interesting. I mean, that is interesting. You know? And that's interesting for that should be interesting for for any any radical on on the left as well. Yeah. And I and I think that, and also to kind of to name these people and the design their designs, as protagonists that are actually, you know, starting to play an active role in shaping political economies. You know? But it's a kind of it's a it's a it's a role that does not look like the policymaker and does not look like the the economist. You know, it's it's a it's an engineer. It's a computer engineer. It's a it's, you know, computer scientist. And so, like, they have a different set of interests, and they have a different way of intervening in political economy, which is by designing infrastructure, you know, designing systems, and dip and deploying cryptography and and different cryptographic techniques. And, you know, it's a it's a kind of material engagement or, let's say, it's funny to call it material. Right? Because Digitally material? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But let's say it's yeah. It's a form of, it's a non it's a nonhuman intervention or something. I don't know. Can't find the right word right now. But, yeah, infrastructure it's an infrastructure intervention into political economy. Right? And so and so infrastructure and this protagonist of the hacker engineer has become a player, you know, as much as, as much as, you know, a central banker or, you know, regulator and and so on.
Yeah. I sometimes, I well, like, first off, I I definitely, agree with that sentiment or like that, like, this protagonist exists, I think, for sure. If you, if you are able to have the opportunity to meet these, engineers who are building all these systems, like like a lot of them may have, like, read a little bit of Hayek, but they aren't, like, Hayekians. It tends to be, like, a different class of people who are like that. It is more like the hype men may or maybe like the Hayekians a bit. And then Yeah. Hacker engineers are sort of just, like, ultra nerdy. Exactly. Trying their best to sort of connect, maybe different abstract political thoughts they may have to their work, which I find interesting as well.
Yeah. And it And they're trying to solve pretty advanced problems, you know. And it's like I don't know. I I feel like, you know, engaging in that in with a more kind of generous mind
is super important, you know. And I see it Yeah. You should be nice to them, I think, partially if they're gonna be building in the future.
Well, I am. No. I, you know, I I I like engaging. I I really like engaging. And it's but it's it's a schism that I see kind of happening over and over again. Also by, you know we can go broader than, you know, just talk about kind of social sciences in in general. It's like there is just a bit of a kind of there's a kind of stereotype of what the kind of, you know, the technologist, the evil technologist, or the evil computer scientist might look like or whatever. And it's like, man, just they're actually, like, they're actually, like, really interesting, nerds that are trying to do super interesting things. And I think a bit more kind of engagement across the divide, would be very good for both parties.
It's sort of, to me, a bit annoying that it feels like almost like what you studied has become politicized. Yeah. Like, if you studied social sciences, you're on the left. But if you studied STEM, you're on the right. Exactly. As if that actually, like, exists or matters, I find that so ridiculous.
But actually, just on that on that paper while we're on the topic also, I it's, you know, it's also important for people for critics to start to engage with some of the political differences internally in the crypto space. Right? Yeah. So, like, I, you know, I hesitated a little bit there earlier when I was saying, like, you know, when I mentioned Bitcoin because Bitcoin, you know, to to some degree more than many other, crypto. But I think most crypto does contain, you know, some certain kind of, key, reference points. Right? And Bitcoin in terms of kind of, like, you know, gold and their relationship to gold and all this kind of thing. Like, there is a lot of there is some you know, there are monetary ideas that have definitely been, kind of circulated a a lot and and kind of adopted by Bitcoiners without necessarily knowing the the political, precursors to to that. And so that and that's where I'm like, you know, Colombia is right in many ways, but it's not the full picture. You know? Yeah. It's really not the full picture. And especially if you look at the, the, the people that were engaged in, in Bitcoin in early days, you know, and the people involved in, in the conversations around Bitcoin in early days, there was a lot more going on.
Yeah. I mean, here I'm think here I'm thinking of Jaromil and and Amir Taki and, and all those, those people, you know. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of yeah. I've I've I've mentioned it before, but I found I just found the book, not that it was, like, the the the right wing politics of Bitcoin book, not that it was, like, wrong per se about everything, but that it was lacking a lot, I felt. Yeah.
Definitely. And it was lacking exactly that that other aspect to the decentralization agenda and the whole kind of history. I mean, there's so much that hasn't been written up yet, like, properly, like, the kind of the the the more kinda left leaning histories of peer to peer as well. Right. You know, that I think is is important to kind of acknowledge. It it felt I mean, yeah.
To our previous conversation, I mean, I don't know Columbia at all as a person, but it felt that it was sort of it felt like when I was reading, like, a social sciences versus STEM Yeah. Type of mentality that I was kind of, like, frustrated with. But so, you also wrote going to the next paper I wanted to talk about or the article that you had written, was something you wrote in the Agorism in the twenty first Century Journal, who I also spoke to, to Rose and, Dylan who or, or Paul, who, are editors of the of the journal and that interview should be coming out probably before this one comes out. But it was really interesting because you talked about markets in, like, yeah, in a way that sort of like the I don't wanna say dualistic, but like, contradictions of markets and how to view them and whether they are good or bad. Because you called it the the title of the article is The Market as a Gun to Your Head, Tool in Your Hand, or Escape Roots from Hell. Yeah. Which was like Very dramatic timing. Yeah. But it was it was it was I mean, it yeah. Again, it was it was able to sort of, articulate some of the thoughts that I had as well about markets. I don't really know what to do with or how to explain it to other people, maybe on other people, like, on the left. So I think, like you mentioned earlier, if you grow up in, like, a left wing, I guess, political tradition, you're sort of, like, the default is sort of, like, markets are bad and, like, the existence of markets is generally just, like, a bad thing that you should be against. Yeah. With sometimes, I guess I guess, there are some, like, market anarchists who who would who would maybe be against that on the left or, yeah, the alternative being just, like, planned economy or something.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I was wondering how you how how you were went about writing that piece.
Yeah. So the algorithm essay was written up in a bit of a kind of frenzy of trying to counter a little bit the, yeah, the kind of market anarchist position, I guess, that that algorithm, really, you know, subscribes to. Partially because I felt that, again I mean, we touched upon this a little bit earlier in our chat, but this this idea that markets in any easy way exist without state coercion, I felt was a little bit kind of, especially in today's day and age, a little bit incorrect and, like, historically incorrect. And I so I wanted to kind of, in the article, just, like, very quickly kind of, like, smash those things two things together because people, for some reason, still tend to think about markets and states as opposed to one another when actually they're absolutely intricately linked. You know? The market needs to stay for enforcement, and the state needs the market in order to, you know, encourage economic stimulation and and get taxes. So, you know, this you now we I mean, we have this kind of very entangled kind of relationship, between the two. So I wanted to kind of push back on the the the market anarchist positions a little bit to kind of yeah. With that piece. But also to argue that markets, you know, represent a form of coercion in their own right. And, and so there's, you know, there's not, you know, Marcus does not equate freedom in any easy way. It's it's another kind of, yeah, it's it's it's just another form of coercion. So that was a kind of, like, the first, aim of the piece. But then, like you say I also say, you know, talk about it as a tool in your hand, or as an escape route from hell. And that's kind of because I don't I'm I'm really kind of sick and tired of the, stereotypical positions of, like, for and against or whatever that kind of get assigned to different political categories. Because at a certain point, we also have to kind of acknowledge the kind of immediate experience that people are having. And, you know, markets, and economic freedom, is often very much experienced as economic freedom. Right? It's like, well, when it works for people, it works for you know, it can it it can't it really can literally mean, you know, freedom. And to to ignore that, with some kind of, like, leftist dogma, is just like it's boring and it's incorrect and it's lazy and it's it's not acknowledging the contradictions that we're living within. And so it doesn't it doesn't give us much kind of, like, kind of grounded reality to actually move forward with. It's just a repetition of of dogmas over and over again. And that's I mean, I that that latter point is something that I wanna work on a lot more. You know, what does it what what does kind of, you know, monetary forms of freedom actually really kind of mean, and what is the relationship between what you experience as an individual and and what what's going on on a kind of structural level. Right?
Hey, everyone. If you're enjoying the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and join the crypto leftist communities on Discord or Reddit, which you can find links to in the show notes. And if you're enjoying the interview or find the content that I make important, you can pitch into my efforts starting at $3 a month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist to help me out and join the news patrons like Manuel, Yin Wo, and Ennis. Any amount really helps since making this up isn't free in terms of money or time. As a patron, you'll get a shout out on an episode like I just did and access the bonus content like q and a episodes where you can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer. I'll give my thoughts in roughly twenty minutes. Or in the last bonus episode, I actually spoke to two other crypto leftists who went to ETHDenver, and we spoke about their experiences there, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Of course, I'll still be making free content like this interview to help spread the message that blockchain doesn't need to be used to further entrenched capitalist exploitation if we put our efforts into it. So if that message resonates with you, I hope you'll consider helping out. The I tend to think of markets, like yeah. That markets, like you said, are a form of coercion that we are sort of, like at least if you if you are born and grow up in, you know, Western, you know, liberal capitalist countries, and you are sort of, like, forced to partake in the market without much, like, other options anyway. So it's never really, like, it's never presented really as a choice, even though, like, I don't know, shitty shitty right wingers will say, like, well, if you don't like it then move or something like that. But it's it has a yeah. Like I said, if you if you make a lot of money, then it works great for you. Markets are are doing wonderful things and, like, Hayek was right. But if you are, I don't know, unemployed and, you can't find your, find a job in the labor market, then it's sort of like, a very coercive thing. Yeah. And that sort of gets that gets ignored. But then I think that at the same time, I'm at least I'm just very skeptical that the market is going to go away anytime soon or, like, just sort of, like, disappear whenever our magical socialist government sort of comes into power. Yeah.
Well, that was the other point that I wanted to make really was, you know, in in the piece, which is that, like, you know, markets and states don't just exist kind of out there. They're also kind of deeply embedded in our behavioral patterns, you know, as individuals and collectively. So, you know, the, yeah, the the kind of tendency to reproduce, you know, the state and reproduce market perspectives or even reproduce the police in the way that we behave between, you know, between each other is, yeah, it's another one of the big problems. But on the question of whether markets are gonna disappear or not, like, I I markets just just as money, I don't think are gonna just they're not disappearing. They're they're I mean, they're really just splintering into a whole new variety of shapes and forms. In and, you know, it's very hard to kinda put a finger on what exactly that's gonna look like, but it's kind of I think the kind of merge of I mean, I guess, to take it back to Hayek, if we think of markets as an information processor and the fact that so much kind of, structural policies has kind of incorporated that outlook, you know, that we can then think of money as a very crude form of data in that information processor. And where now instead of kind of money as a crude you know, in that crude form of data, and here I'm talking about, like, fungible tokens or cash even, we're we're entering a space where we're gonna have much more fine grained forms of data, swirling around this giant information processor. So, like, they kind of it's almost like, I guess, like I mean, compute you know, computation and markets have have had a kind of you know, in in the in intellectual history, we've had quite a kind of intertwined relationship always. So, like, Hayek, obviously, when saying the market as information processor was inspired by what was going on in, computation at that time. But, like, I think they're I think they're gonna I mean, they're, yeah, they're almost gonna merge, I guess, is what I'm saying. And in kinda weird ways where, money becomes fragmented into a lot of different data points that sometimes serve the purpose of reputation and sometimes serve the purpose of,
taking stock of the of accounting or or whatever else. You know? Yeah. I feel like that's, yeah, that's something that I'm seeing as well. I think it's interesting. There's still, like, the sort of awkwardness that a lot of these tokens, like, reputation or or governance, if that's, like, a different form of value, still, a lot of the times, have like, they're just like a for example, like an ERC 20 token. It's like a you can just put it on any sort of decentralized exchange. So you can always, like, sort of pick out you can always get, like, a financial value out of it
Yeah. To a certain degree. Exactly. But there are ways I mean, I think it's there isn't you can make it so that it doesn't. You could. Yeah. But you don't see it very much. But that's a that's an interesting point as well. I mean, first of all, I'd be interested to hear how you how you could see that you could make it so that it doesn't because I'm not I'm not quite sure if that's I think it's almost too late for that. But I am interested in I mean, a whole other kind of research strand that came up during my PhD was this question of, like, what happens when when you integrate economic ideas or economic design into information into the information security space, right, which is essentially what token economics does. Right? It's this on a very basic level, it's like incentivize good behavior, disincentivize or or punish bad behavior. Right? And using kind of economic incentives as a means to, to protect against various forms of attacks, right, whether civil attacks or whatever else. But I found I found it so kind of curious and interesting to see how many new forms of attacks that that opens up for. Right? Because, you know, you you integrate economic incentives. Well, then all of a sudden, there is an economic incentive to to perform attacks. Right? And so, I think the the economization of computation is something that I would love to kind of, or it's a it's an open strand of research for me that I would love to dive into more and the economization, and financialization of computation and what that actually does to what, you know, the proposition of of computation, like, what what we're actually trying to achieve with computer systems. Like, does it get in the way of that? Does it enable that? You know? And, you know, I think it does a little bit of both, but it's also transforming it into something,
something wildly different. Which I imagine you're getting exposed a lot,
through Nim. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. But no. But I I didn't wanna like, I don't know how you feel about it because you probably read more Hayek than me. But the this more types of money popping up seems to almost contradict Hayek a bit. It seems like not Hayek yet. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's another kind of part to that algorithm piece that you know? So there was the market as a gun to your head, which is, like, markets as coercion. Right? And then the market, as a tool in your hand and the market, as escape route from hell. And the market as a tool in your hand, we didn't talk about that yet. And that's a little bit kind of the this this other position that is, like, you know, money becoming multiple different forms. There, I want I wanted to highlight a a shift that's also happened in, you know, in the field of economics and to some degree, political economy are more like social social studies of finance is actually the people that are starting to look at this more more closely, but, which is a shift in you know, it's it's people are kind of noting that, like, actually, you know, market thinking by economists is less about that is less referring to kind of Hayek in the Hayek in perfect market, let's say, and is more referring to markets as a bespoke design solution. Right? So the idea that you can design markets to achieve a variety of different things. And that's, you know, that's more in line with what's actually happening in the crypto space. Right? It's like these kind of bespoke little markets that are solving specific, game theoretical problems, for specific types of of use cases and system design, or or specific kind of information security requirements. And that's that's also you know, it's something that for me has been eye opening and important to note because it just shows, again, that it's the the allegiance to right wing thinking is just not so strong. I mean, it really isn't it's not really what people care about. Like, people are not ideological in that sense. I I think the hack like, what would you mean? Like, with, like, the hacker engineer
will not does not care to be a purist Hayekian in the way that, like, that their Hayekian hype men want them to be. I don't think. I think they are more interested in, yeah, like solving problems in a particular way. Exactly. So I feel that I still have, like, developing this thought, so I'm afraid to share it. But, like, it it seems to me, like, there's going to be a need for some amount of, like, almost like social democracy within these systems, but, like like, a stateless social democracy in a certain way where they're going they are sort of like it seems to me, I think, a lot of these hacker engineers are trying to look for ways to sort of, like, prevent the attacks that come from the market. Yeah. Almost like reducing the exposure to the free market, for certain aspects of their systems. And they're doing it in, like, interesting creative ways that, okay, maybe maybe are or are not socialism or social democracy in the way that you want to define it, but I think are, like, interesting to pay attention to, like, at the at the very least.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, let's see what will happen because the problem you know, I think we can't run away from the fact that, like, by adding economic dynamics into, you know, the design of of computer system protocols, like or decentralized protocols, like, we you know, you just add a hell of a lot of complexity to to to what's going on. And that complexity is only necessary insofar as I mean, like, if we're gonna be pragmatic about it, adding that level of complexity is is is is only there to get the VC money. I mean, let's be real.
Like, it's there's a lot of kind of, I think it depends. I would say it depends.
I it sure. Sure. I mean, you're you're maybe less cynical than than I am right now. Well, I've been pretty cynical lately. So Yeah. Like, I, you know, I think, again, it's I I tend to take kind of quite contradictory positions on these things. But, like, you know, I think there's a there's a lot of interesting experimentation going on, but generally speaking, in terms of actual deployment and use, like It's the minority for sure. I mean The yeah. It is the minority. Like, like, when it you know? Money wise.
Yeah. Yeah. But I think at least I don't have any, I never, like, convinced myself that hacker engineers are going to magically create socialism or something like that. Like, I feel like that's sort of like a silly thing to think, especially when they are surrounded largely by, like, Hayekians, for example, or, like, people who are more on the right side. Like, I don't I don't expect them to make the system that I would ideally want them to create. But I think it's interesting to observe what they're creating and then, I think it is worthy of my time at least to try and sort of share my feedback on maybe what they're building and, like, try to be a part of it.
Yeah. That's sort of how I think. Yeah. I mean, I for sure. And, like, you know, the the social democracy aspect is I mean, that's that's an interesting thought. I think there is
A very rudimentary social democracy that we think. Like, I'm not really Yeah. I mean that very lightly. I still haven't just come up with, like, a better word. Right?
I mean, the, you know, the question of governance is obviously key here Yeah. And how that governance, like, will or or will not take place and and who's able to kind of, like, access that form of governance. But, yeah, like, the there is, you know, there is an interesting kind of I don't know. I'm I'm I mean, I'm thinking about the kind of the this this planned versus, pure kind of, like, the planned economy versus kind of the market economy, take that I think we're gonna see really weird blends, really weird mixes of that that where it's not gonna look like one or the other form. It's gonna be actually a little bit of a kind of strange combination. Again, like bespoke markets, but maybe some element of kind of, like, cybernetic planning going on that then, you know, is semi automated, and and maybe there's interesting governance added to that, or maybe it's just, like, purely algorithmic kind of, fascism. But, you know, it will take these type these variety of forms. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. I'm trying I'm trying to kind of draw up, like, draw up some pieces of, like, you know, okay. Where are the front lines here, you know, of of these where are the front lines of these debates? Like, how are things? What are the kind of key theses? What is difficult,
I think, at the same time is that the front lines that we're talking about, I think, are not at the front lines of, like, media or, like, of, like, influence at a at a, like, a larger scale?
Like, I think there are these pockets of Oh, that Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not too concerned about that because for me, this right now, we've kind of, we've entered a little bit of a phase of, like it's a long term game for me at this point. So I'm okay with, like, taking a moment to really kinda think about it before, like, the before we kind of, like, from my perspective, before kind of, like, reintervening, full force, on the political economy side of things anyway. On the privacy side of things, I'm I'm definitely part of the intervening.
Yeah. Because, actually, I I wanted to talk about, of course, your work at Nim since you, started off as a researcher in, I think, academia. And you've, like, talked about the sort of solution the, like, the critique of, like, the solutionism in, cryptocurrency. But now you are a part of NIM, which is, like, a Web three company. Yep. And, like, my suspicion but, of course, you can, like, tell me if I'm wrong. But I guess, like, part of the decision of doing that was choosing to want to actively engage in the cryptocurrency space to some capacity rather than just relegating yourself as, like, yeah, a critic,
of some sorts. Yeah. I mean, that's very that's absolutely true. And, also, I would add to that that, NIM is one of the few projects in the web three space that I actually would get involved in because it is it, it's one of the few kind of use cases where I really do feel like it it makes sense. Like, if we pull it off, it kind of it makes sense. And I'll try and explain a little bit why. Nim is a global decentralized privacy system, which is comprised of a mix net. And what a mix net does is it's kind of like a extremely powerful type of VPN in a sense. But so it takes Internet traffic, mixes it with other traffic so that you can't see who's speaking to who, makes all the traffic look essentially the same. So you can't kind of trace what type of data is being sent through the network. And it kind of it creates a kind of, like, a a a shroud, let's say, over communications. So one of the reasons why decentralization is super important in order to ensure privacy of this kind is because, you know, if you don't have decentralization and you have, like, one part of the infrastructure that is that it that the rest of the system actually depends on, that part becomes huge hugely vulnerable to anyone trying to to, hack the privacy of the system. And, you know, by creating a a fully decentralized system, you know, there is no centralized point of control that can actually, give access to the data, and so you kind of eliminate some of the, you know, the the vulnerability there. The other aspect to that is that you have, you know, the the problem that we're facing when it comes to privacy online is that it's one of those things that, like, everybody wants it, but no one has the incentive to really provide it and to provide it well right now. So, you know, nation states really want privacy because, you know, that kind of helps the national security agenda, you know, but on the other hand, they can't help but wanna put in a kind of backdoor because they wanna know what their populations are up to, and they wanna understand, like, if they have, you know, enemies amongst the population. And so they end up kind of breaking their own security in a sense. And, and company's the same. Right? They wanna kind of, like, satisfy the growing demand for privacy, but on the other hand, they wanna know everything about their customers. And it's interesting, you know, like, even I would say even when you talk to privacy companies, you know, privacy companies even wants to know what their customers are up to. And that's why it's important to have a privacy system where even the company itself has no control over, over the infrastructure. And that's what we're trying to do at at NIM. You know? But when you then you end you know, when you then create a decentralized infrastructure like this, you know, you have other examples that are that are very good like Tor. But Tor faces a lot of limitations and especially around kind of scaling and and sustainability, in in the long run. And then there's a bunch of other kind of technical limitations, but I'd I'll I'd leave that to Claudia Diaz and Anya for to explain. But the you know, we're trying to kind of ensure that, nodes that operate the infrastructure, you know, the mixed nodes that actually operate the infrastructure have, are compensated well for for doing so and compensated enough to cover their costs and to also happily continue to run the infrastructure. There's more to the cryptoeconomics. I mean, I can explain, like, apart from apart from the nodes being rewarded, the the token, in the NIM system also operates as a, as a reputation token. So anybody who holds NIM tokens can can, you know, bond though or, like, can delegate those tokens to mixed nodes that then act as that mixed node's reputation, which will give it a kind of boost, and it will allow it to mix more traffic and get rewarded more in the network. And so there's a kind of decentralized reputation system that ensures quality, quality control in in the network as well. I mean, the you know, I don't wanna go we can do a whole podcast in the cryptoeconomics. Yeah. But the the point that I think is I think the key thing that was important for me with the NIM system is that the the token really is a token. It's not claiming to be a currency of any form. It's not claim claiming to, kind of have any use outside of that internal system dynamics. And so, like, just like we were speaking about before, it's like, okay. You can you can create these economic games, and and then, you know, you run them in this kind of, like, in this bubble universe. And, you know, we can see how they play out. And for me, it makes a lot of sense in the NIM system, and I'm quite happy to to to see how that plays out for a privacy system like this this in that kind of contained environment. Yeah. I think
when you explain it that way, like, I can see why well, it, like, it to me, the the token seems almost like the Hayekian signaling system to a certain degree, but it's still not, like, it's not money or, like, in the Yeah. In the way that Hayek, as far as I understand, describes money as being, like, a signaling system for compressing information.
Yeah. I mean I mean, it's a very kind of, like, it's a very because it the use the use of the token internally is such a kind of, like, such a kind of, like, limited use. Mhmm. It doesn't seem very to me. It's almost more as like a, yeah, I don't know. Like, we so Chelsea Manning recently joined our team, and she started to describe it as like, you know, in some ways, it's almost like you're paying for a bus fare. You know? It's like if you think of privates the NIM privacy system as, like, you know, a a bus that your traffic takes, you know, takes through the kind of Internet or whatever. It's like you hand over your token, which allows you to take that bus. And then, I mean, the reputation system is like again, like, if we wanna take a kind of ideologically pure perspective on, you know, token driven reputation systems, you know, and I've spoken to people who totally freak out when they hear that. And I would have freaked out when I when I heard that, if it was like a generalized system. But we're talking about node operators here, and we're not talking about human beings in the sense that, like, the node operator Like a social credit score or something. Yeah. Exactly. It's not a social credit score. It's like it's literally like the operator of a node, and it's not even, like, you know, that person's, like, name or anything like that. It's literally just the kind of node ID. Do you know what I mean? So it's kind of Yeah. It's such a it's and it kind of matches very much, like, the general ethos that we have in the in the project, which is, you know, we wanna ensure, you know, high quality of service and we wanna ensure transparency of the actual infrastructure itself as a way to enable privacy for users. Right? And those users include node operators who might wanna use the system to to protect their own privacy. But their their the operations of their actual node, you know, the the the location of the server that they're running and so on. Like, this stuff is, like, you know, it's quite important for the for the network to be provably decentralized, for it to be transparent, that it actually operates the way that it's supposed to operate and so on. So, like, we we make that that kind of distinction.
Yeah. I I guess the what I was trying to maybe say is that if you are a Hayekian and you view things in a hacking framework, then it's easy for you to see that token as, like, fulfilling Hayek's dream even though it's, like, from my understanding, like, an incorrect understanding of Hayek.
Yeah. I mean, it is. Because yeah. I mean, you know, it's sure, like, tokens the tokens signal certain things, but, we're not we're not in any way proposing that it gives the full picture of what's going on in society in general. You know? Right. We're just saying it signals that this node is generally trusted by the community and seems to have done a good job in the past, like, four months or however long. You know? Right. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's about the kind of, like, the contained use case and the contained proposition. And, and, yeah, the it's one of the few projects where I'm thinking it's it's definitely worth trying this out for this particular use case. Yeah. It's
a a really nice project. I I think it's really interesting, and it's hard to I know. I I guess if, explaining Nim to maybe a fellow lefty, maybe they're more likely to be like, okay. I'll I'll give you a little bit of space. Yeah. I would like to think. I don't know if you've had any experience trying to explain it now that went No. It's not sure. I mean
well, we I mean, well, Chelsea is not very she's doesn't like crypto, and she's happily involved. I mean, we've got, you know, we've got endorsement from quite a quite a lot of crypto skeptics. So, you know, let's see how it goes. It is it is it is an experimentation. You know? Let and I think let's see how it goes. There is I thing when it comes to kind of, like, market volatility and stuff like that, there's a lot of dynamics that that remain to be seen. But, yeah, I think as a kind of, yeah, as a system design and as a particular use case, I think it's it's definitely well well worth
trying it out. Yeah. Because you'll find out if, the market will be your friend or your enemy soon enough. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly.
Cool. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time to speak with me. Maybe if you just want to share with people where they can keep up with you and your work. Yeah. I,
I'm one of those people that for the past year, at least, have been so busy that I haven't managed to update much of my online presence, and my website has been hacked and Oh, wow. By, by crypto shillers. Really? I understand. I I I found out like, I hadn't even looked at my own website for, like, a long time, and then I looked at I, yeah, I looked at it the other day, and, it turned out that it had been it had been hacked. Some people were trying to sell crypto via on my URL. Anyway, so that's now down. Okay. But generally speaking, I think the easiest place to follow me is on Twitter, and I'm Jayapapaya. So that's j a y a p a p a y a. And I tend to be Jayapapaya on on most things. So that's easiest way to find that is a great, great username. All right. Great. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.