Bail Bloc: A Cryptocurrency Scheme Against Bail
Bailbloc is a cryptocurrency scheme against bail through The New Inquiry, in which you can download the app and a small portion of your computer's unused processing power is redirected toward mining Monero. At the end of every month, Bailbloc exchanges the Monero for US dollars and donates the earnings to one of the bail funds in the National Bail Fund Network on a rotational basis. Due to changes in the US legal system around bail, the project is in the process of being phased out, how...
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Transcript
Hello, everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. And for today's interview, I have Grayson Earl. He is an artist in residence of Zendrom furkunst un Urbanistik. Don't know if I pronounced that right. German speakers with the Center for Arts and Urbanistics, which is based in Berlin. And he's also one of the creators of Bail Block, which is a very interesting cryptocurrency scheme that helps people who are in need bail, pay bail in The United States, based on Monero. So, hey, Grayson. How are you doing? Good. How are you doing? I'm I'm doing pretty good. Thanks.
Yeah. You pronounced it better than I would have by the way. So for what it's worth.
Alright. Nice. I take that. So, yeah. For this interview, the reason that I that I found Greyson is because I stumbled upon Bail Block which I thought was a really, really interesting scheme for, I think what is, like, objectively a good thing, a good use of cryptocurrency. And so I'm really interested in in going into that. But maybe before we do that, you could give us just a a quick introduction to yourself and how you came to, you know, the blockchain and and crypto space. I know that isn't all that you do, but you did, at least with Bellbok, you were sort of in it for a bit. Yeah.
So I, as you said, I'm I'm an artist, and that's kind of, my primary identity, I guess. Aside from also being an educator, I've taught at, Oberlin College, at the City University of New York, and most recently, a new school in Parsons. And, actually, at Oberlin and Parsons, I was teaching a class called money as medium where I sort of used a lot of the research that went into bail block to develop a syllabus around yet thinking about, leftist, opportunities in cryptocurrency and blockchain and also, creative or artistic invention interventions into the world of economics and finance in general. And so that was has been really great for me and for the students. And so I was so happy to hear about your podcast because I feel like it's something that I think about at times, and I'm like, ah, if only there were, like, a serious, you know, leftist blockchain community. And then lo and behold, you're,
like, you're in the center of that. I I I spotted the hole in the market, and I just, I dove into it.
Yeah. And then, I mean, as far as, like, how I got involved, I've I've been, by trade a programmer, you know, for most of my life now. Definitely most now that I'm becoming an old man. And, when I was in grad school, I was getting back into doing more programming projects because I kind of took a break for a while. And, Occupy Wall Street was was happening at the same time as I was managing this media lab at Hunter College as a grad student. And I was getting I was starting to investigate Bitcoin as, you know, a technology intended to kind of circumvent the, you know, centralized power of the banks. And so I was looking I was really just fascinated by how they accomplished that on a technological level, like what mining is and how it, you know, decentralizes this ledger and stuff. And so, anyway, I installed some mining software on all of the computers there to just sort of run at night. You know? And at the time, it's important to say Bitcoin was worth, like, I mean, $20 or something, I think. So it wasn't like a money making scheme. I kinda wish that I would have considered it that way at times because,
it lasted for, you know, a couple of weeks, and then I was like, oh, that was interesting. Okay. I sort of understand this now, and I'm moving on. Is is it the, like, the the, you know, the story of, like and and then you forgot your your password or you, like, threw out the hard drive with the password with all the Bitcoins in it or something like that?
But for me, it was just like, I I had two Bitcoin, and then I I had the password. I'm very organized, with my computing. So but I, like, ended up buying I remember, like, there's this company called Leap that sells this controller, this, like, interactive controller that you use with your hand. You, like, cover your hand above the sensor. And, anyway, they were one of these early adopters of, like, you can buy this with Bitcoin. And so I spent, like, 0.5 Bitcoin on this thing that costs, like, $50 US. But, you know, anyway yeah. And then it just sort of it stuck in my mind as this this way to generate money out of thin air, so to speak. I mean, obviously, it's more complicated than that. But, then it was kind of around the time that, Donald Trump had been elected, and I was sort of, like, dealing with the fact that it seems like the Internet, which was always heralded as this this space in which, you know, progressive voices would prevail and, like, humankind would be united through this thing in this, like, post scarcity, space. And, you know, clearly, the the right had, kinda usurped that and and used it for their own ends and done so more effectively than the left, frankly. And so it was kind of like, okay. Clicktivism doesn't work. Like, all the sharing of all these articles that we just that we were, like, so obsessed with, you know, and the sort of, like, Bernie and then Hillary v Donald Trump thing, like, it didn't amount to anything. And so I was just, like, really trying to think about what what it would look like to kinda really weaponize clicktivism or, like, what what would it take to for that to have a material effect on the world? And I kind of devised this project that, at the time, was called redistribute, which would be like a distributed, cryptocurrency mining application, that then people who participated could kind of vote for where those funds were directed. And that would be a sort of, like, curated list. You know? At the time, as far as I got in my thinking at the time was, like, there was this thing black mama bailout that I found really inspiring. It was basically like a fund to get black mothers out of pretrial detention, but also, like, planned parenthood and, like, Greenpeace because I knew those were three, you know, areas, of society that were gonna suffer a lot under Donald Trump. And then, eventually, I I I submitted that as a grant application, for this organization called iBeam, which is basically, like, art and digital technologies, and they kind of, like, award artists, some funding to to, you know, bring ideas to fruition. And it was rejected there, but then my friend Sam Levine, who, was working at the new inquiry as an editor and, yeah, software developer, He heard the idea and was, like, really interested in it and brought me to the new inquiry. And then a bunch of people there got really excited about it, and together, we turned it into, something that was obviously much more focused on bail, as the target for for its rhetoric, but also its technology. And then, yeah, the rest is is history.
And that that original idea is is really interesting. And and, I mean, I don't know. At the time, I don't know if the word I I don't think the, like, the word DAO is really used, decentralized autonomous organization, but it is sort of, like, within a similar vein, I get the impression of being able to vote on what you do with shared collected resource collectivized resources, I guess.
Yeah. Definitely. It's funny that you bring that up. I was just thinking about this last night, and I was like, I think that the DAO had happened at the time. But and then, yeah, it went there was, like, it it goes hacked and, like and then it just, like, the idea never came back into the world somehow. And I was like, what what you know, what is preventing that from happening again?
Yeah. I I feel like only, like, just now, like, very recently is it really taking off. Like, I think now there is there is much better tooling than than there ever was before for starting it or at least, yeah, these different groups are definitely attempting to, but I think partially the issue at the moment is, like, you know, every every fucking VC wants, like, you know, every net every start up to become a become a DAO so that they can get a bunch of tokens. And, you know, there's there's a certain coopation at the moment, I think, probably going on. But, yeah, that's for that's for another conversation. But I think, at the very least, I think the idea of what, like, makes DAOs enticing is, I think, basically, what that original is getting at is just, like, the ability to have some sort of voice and say in, like, how resources are distributed in general.
Yeah. Totally. Which is, yeah, obviously, so needed. And that's kinda I mean, you know, I, of course, have heard recently about your project, and it seems like that's, in some ways, what what that's about. Right?
Eventually. Yeah. So get more, get more socialist into that space to, yeah, counter that's the at least the the VC dominated space. Yeah. Something different, I think. Yeah. Once we the the tooling is there, you just sort of have to take it and and seize it, so to say. Yeah.
Totally.
Before going into exactly how bail block works, I think it would be really good to have a bit of an explanation of what the situation was like now or what the situation was like before, in The United States, you know, around bail since now that situation has changed. But maybe you can give, like, a little bit of background on, yeah, how what what was going on then and, you know, sort of describe the problem that BuildBlock was trying to solve.
Yeah. Totally. I'm just gonna pull up my notes so that I make sure I get some of these details correct because well, I think I probably will anyway. It's just such a serious topic that it deserves, accuracy. But, yeah, I mean, so at the time, some of the discussions that we were having at the new inquiry were were around, this sort of like well, yeah. When I when the project finally got to the new inquiry, they brought to my attention, a lot of the research they had been doing on bail. And so as a sort of basic definition, bail is, money or property, that is deposited to the court by the suspects in a criminal case. And this is basically to prevent this person who's been, you know, accused of a crime from fleeing. So, like, they say, okay. You're you're charged with, or you're suspected of of stealing a, an item from a store. They basically say, okay. If you pay bail, then we'll allow you to leave and go home for your trial, and be able to sleep in your own bed and, like, talk to your family and stuff. But you have to pay, like, $5,000. And if you show up to your day in court, then you get that $5,000 back. You know? So it's just like it's a deposit to make sure that you actually show up. Because, otherwise, people might say, okay. Here's $10,000, and then, like, go to Mexico, or whatever. So, but there's, like, obvious problems with this. Right? Like, it's it disproportionately affects low income people. And given the history of our country, this also means it disproportionately affects people of color who are also charged or accused of crimes at a much higher rate, than white people, for example. And, you know, there was one story in particular, this young kid, Kalief Bowder, who was accused of stealing a backpack in New York and, ended up spending over two years, I believe, in jail, awaiting trial on Rikers Island. He hadn't been actually, like, found guilty of anything. And, his time was so terrible there, understandably, that he ended up taking his own life. And so, you know, it's not as though this is, like, a a problem that only lasts a couple of days or something. Like, this can actually end up taking years because, the court system is so impacted, especially in places like New York. And so you have, statistically, a much better chance of being found innocent if you're out on bail. And in some ways, this is like a correlation problem. Right? Because it's like, okay. If you have more money, then you can also afford lawyers, and so you have better chance of defending yourself. But even controlling for those those properties, like people who also get a public defendant, for example, you still have a much better chance of, defending yourself, in court if you are out on bail. And this is because of things like you know, it's gonna be, for sure, more relaxing to be at home for three weeks than at a jail. You're gonna be better able to, like, strategize with your family and, like, take a look a look at documents at your leisure and on the Internet and, like, you know what I mean? Like, all this kind of stuff. Build your case, essentially. Exactly. Yeah. You're gonna be able to build your case from the comfort of your own home. You know? And so, the other sort of aspect of all of this, or, actually, I should say, so the conviction rate for people not detained for pretrial detention is fifty percent. For those who are detained during pretrial is ninety two percent. So it's a very telling statistic. And it's always important to remember that these people have not been found guilty of anything. Like, you know, they haven't had a a day in in court. You know? And so, oh, yes. Okay. So the plea bargain system kind of comes into play here. So, like, partially to deal with this overly impacted court system, the district attorney will start giving, offering people plea bargains. And so this is basically like, okay. You're accused with this crime that is I mean, yeah.
I don't know. God, I'm not struggling with the with a gram of weed or something like that.
Yeah. Or, like, let's say you're you're you're accused of having, like, two ounces of weed. The DA will say, okay. Like, that comes with, you know, a fine of $2,000 and, like, six months in jail and, like, you know, three months of community service or something. But I'm willing to bargain with you, and we'll say that you're caught for one ounce, which comes with a fine of, like, two months in jail and, like, $1,000. You know? And so for people, who are offered this, they're looking at this, like, as a risk assessment. They're like, well, if I turn this down and I do go to court, which might be expensive and so on, if I'm then, if I lose my case, then I'm worse off. And so this is basically, like, a guaranteed way of me spending less time, in jail under those circumstances.
So a lot of people will take this. And does the I imagine a lot of times that plea bargain also affects their, like, ability to get a job afterwards or something like that.
Yeah. Exactly. Because they are yeah. They're pleading guilty to a crime. They're pleading guilty to a lesser crime, but a crime nonetheless. And if it is, like yeah. Yeah. Exactly like you're saying there on job applications. Have you ever been, you know, found guilty of a of a crime? You have to explain yourself. You know? And ninety percent of people in New York State who are offered a plea bargain, will take it, to avoid additional jail time and so on. And even still, in New York, they're they're hearing cases at, like, 9PM on Fridays. You know what I mean? Judges are still there, like, trying to get through the week's cases because there are so many of them. And so it's kind of like that's only 10% of the the people that are, like, actually exercising their right to a free and fair trial.
So it's it it seems also, like, just an issue of, yeah, cops charging just an insane amount of people with crimes. You know? They're they're the, they're the one creating the supply for for these judges.
That's true too. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with, I'm sure, like, a lot of bullshit charges. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, that's, like, one thing to be thankful for with the recent legalization of marijuana in New York is, like, I'm sure that this will have a significant impact on people's lives. You know? Mhmm. But there's still just tons of like, regardless of what they're being accused of, they none of these people have, but, you know, been found guilty, by, a jury of their peers yet, you know. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's like the the idea for us became, well, if that's true, if if the court system already can't handle the amount of people that are taking their cases to trial and the vast majority of people aren't taking their cases to trial, then if only, like, you know, 5% more people could, afford to take their their case to trial, then then the entire court system would break. It would collapse under its own way. And, most people oh, yeah. I forgot to say, like, a lot of people, will take the plea bargain because they can't afford bail. And the plea bargain might have as part of that agreement, like, you know, yeah, less time, awaiting for sentencing or less time in jail total. Right? So so it's really this this is the kind of, like, all of the mechanisms that were at work. And so we were like, well, what if we tipped the scale, you know, by allowing more people to,
afford bail by just, like, giving it to them? And so by by giving it to them, it also means that, I guess, what is also maybe nice about that particular thing I mean, the whole system's fucked anyways, but at least when you pay it and they're found, you know, innocent or whatever, then you get the money back and you can use that for paying other people's bail.
Yeah. Totally. It's a, yeah, revolving bail system. So exactly as you're saying, you know, the vast majority of people, it's like 97% in New York, will show up for their day in trial and otherwise not violate the terms of the bail. And so, yeah, that money goes back into the bail fund and can be used to bail out more people. So yeah. Basically, there is this
it's a it's a whole racket and, it basically screws over everyone of of a lower class and then of course people who are of color because cops tend to, target them, basically causing a a huge traffic jam within the court system leading to this alternative way of trying to get people to go through faster with the plea bargain, which then actually ends up fucking everybody's life up because they have to either take it or suffer through these, like, bogus charges potentially or what what have you. And so Bell block was sort of this project to see if okay. Can we take, could we take cryptocurrency to sort of help with this problem a little bit? So maybe you can you can explain how how BuildBlock's supposed to work. Yeah. So it really just takes advantage of this
cryptocurrency mining, you know, which is this kind of, like, opt in level of participation on a blockchain or cryptocurrency where you put your computer to the task of, you know, solving transactions and, like, helping the well, money is what I'd put it. Helping the money, the coins to move around. And so, you know, they incentivize that process by, like, giving you, some, mining rewards in return. And we were using a mining pool, and so those rewards were, like, very small but very frequent. And so, we would basically get, like, yeah, 0.01 Monero, like, a couple of times a day or something. And, we we chose Monero because it is ASIC resistant, which means, it's resistant to these application specific integrated circuits, these computers that were designed for the task of literally one thing and that thing being mining Bitcoin or whatever. And those mean that, you know, consumer level hardware is completely, inefficient. It can't compete at all. And so Monero being one where it really only, only works, mining on the CPU, We knew that our audience was gonna be or the participants in the project were gonna be using, you know, MacBooks and and Dell laptops and stuff like that. So it was really it had to work on the CPU. And it also seems to be, like, one of the most stable currencies, I think, probably because it gets used more than most of them. You know? It's like kind of like Bitcoin. It's just sort of like a store of value, and doesn't tend to get well, well, I guess they're all speculative. What am I saying?
I I mean, to some degree degree, they all are. But, I I think what what I found really interesting about BuildBlock I mean, first is, like, what you're saying. There's, like, of course, you have you have when people say mining, they usually think of, like, these large warehouses filled with, these big boxes that are, you know, having their their fans are spinning. It's super loud, and it's just, like, chugging the crudest oil you could possibly imagine, for making Bitcoin. But in the case of Monero, they have a very different, you know, these these type of, like, nuances sort of matter. They're using a very different algorithm for mining the cryptocurrency, which is resistant to these, like, big boxes that are really loud with loud fans that most people, I think, imagine. Which means that, you know, you and I can use our computers, to just open a tab and it'll run the program sort of in an opt in way like you said. But what also is really interesting is that I feel like it's taking this this thing called crypto jacking, which I'm I'm sure you know of where, basically, a hacker hacks into your computer, and they sort of sneakily mine Monero on your computer without you knowing it. So, like, your your the power of your computer sort of, goes out a little bit faster. It uses, like, 25% more energy, I think. But, taking crypto jacking but making it into, like, an opt in process, which is really interesting because you're you're opting in knowing that you're okay. You can crypto jack me as long as you're going to pay bail for someone, which I thought was, was very cool.
Yeah. Totally. And it it was really, like, kind of a, you know, a funny that that all of that technology was kind of happening at the same time as, we were developing Bail Block. And so, like, at first, Bail Block, you know, to install it on someone's computer was, like, there was no issue. And then, of course, like, a week into its release, it's so a lot of the algorithms that were employed in the software were, like, now on all of these blacklists. And so, like, you know, virus detection was was, like, going off or people trying to install Vail Block and, like, it became kind of a pain a pain in the ass. And then, also, when I was kind of, like, testing it at Hunter College again when I was working there later, Yeah. One of the network IT people well, because I was, like, making sure that it could run on, like, a 100 computers at once. Yeah. And one of the IT people is seeing all these requests to, like, mine dot x m r pool dot com or whatever. And he's like, he's thinking that, yeah, the school has, like, a botnet. So yeah. But yeah. It is kind of interesting this, like, it's like, yeah. Be part of the the virus, you know, because we are, like, attacking something, and that is this, incarceral system. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I it's sort of, yeah. It's a bit sort of, like, I don't know. It reminds me of, like I don't know if you've seen, like, mister robot or something. It seems like something like like he would do. Yeah. To me, it's sort of like it's taking something that, of course, is, like, generally deemed under most circumstances probably as, like, being something bad, but it it sort of averts or it sort of redirects its energy into into something good. And that's sort of, like, sort of the idea that or, like, the the the mentality that I think a lot of the left could take maybe when thinking about these type of, technologies that they sort of, like, yes. A lot of times these things can be bad and there are, there are obvious issues. But if we, like, make an effort, if we make a program like you did with with Bell block, then we can at least redistribute that, sort of, like, that profit that's being made into something that is a lot more beneficial to society. And, like, yeah, I guess not not not be afraid of, like, trying something new to, to do some sort of, like, left organizing, I would say.
Yeah. Totally. I mean, it's funny because for me, coming from the study of of cinema and art and so on, this is, like, not a new idea. Right? This, as the situation is in France would say, it's. You know? It's like to take something that is in motion and, like, redirect it somewhere else, in a kind of creative or subversive way. And, yeah, exactly as you're saying, like, this was in this case, the energy that we were redirecting is, like, rampant speculation by, you know, wanna be capitalists or something, and then trying to actually put that to the task of being, like, actually revolutionary. You know? Because there's Yeah. There's so many of these people in the crypto space who talk about it as, like, a revolutionary financial system. And then you go to a crypto conference and you look around, and it's, like, a bunch of white guys in a room. You're like, oh, how revolutionary. This is Yeah. Benefiting a familiar cast of characters. And so, you know, it's another part of this project that was, really important to me was just to be put into those conversations and those spaces so that I could be like, hey. You know, hi. Everyone is talking about how this is revolutionary, and, like, I wanna hear how how it's actually revolutionary rather than it just being, like, something making you rich. You know? So to be the, sometimes, the lone socialist at these these places speaking, to, you know, an audience.
Yeah. I've been there. I've been there. Trust me. It's, yeah. This is they when they speak of revolution, it's really just like it's there's a revolution maybe for the investor, like, it's like, you know, which basically just means a new way of making money. But, yeah, I I I've I've I've been in that situation so many times and tried to not out myself while also trying to question their, their motives. But at the same time, yeah, I think what sort of were I've I've been reading, like, a lot of, like, a bit of, like, Mark Fisher and, like, I don't know if you read, like, Postcapitalist Desire, like, the the last lectures that he did. And, yeah, there there's I think there's, like, there's, like, something about, I don't know. He he talks about this idea of, like, libidinal Marxism. Like, we need to find, like, this type of, like, libidinal energy in, like, the way that we organize and, like, the way that we, like, try to basically get people onto our side, and, like, try I wouldn't say, like, co opt, but, like, take advantage of movements and trends that are already happening and try to, redirect it into directions that that we want to see rather than seeing them as, like, completely separate completely separate from us, I guess. So trying to do, like, this type of a I don't know. Type of, like, cross pollination, I guess.
Yeah. I hear you. I mean, yeah, there's something that happens when when the left just tries to define itself in opposition to the other thing rather than kind of, yeah, try to create its own narratives. And, yeah, it's important to, like, also, yeah, make it inviting and, like, dare I say, like, fun and and entertaining at times so that there's some kind of, like, reason that people wanna join in this celebration of life of, like, trying to create a world that actually works for everyone. You know? Yeah.
Yeah. As much as we we want to believe it, but, like, I don't people aren't necessarily always convinced by, like, rational arguments, you know. Like, sometimes a little bit of, little bit of craziness is maybe a good thing in some circumstances.
Yeah. Totally.
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Yeah. Well, on the one hand, there was a steady, well, actually, a sharp increase in, the available funds for, these bail bail fund organizations. So I think, especially at the height of the the last kind of wave of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, people were donating a lot of money to these funds, which is great. But, you know, at a certain point, also, that means that our contribution, as, like, a relatively small player in this, the the amount of money that we're raising and giving, you know, that it became kind of, less effective over time for us to continue to to do this. And at the same time, there's also this kind of this worry, I think, that by continuing to provide bail money, you also somehow, like, legitimize this, this system. And so, there was a kind of, like, a moment when we thought, like, maybe we should be really focusing on the, like, abolitionists, motives that we all have. And then also because of, a lot of the organizing that was going on around bail abolition, including a ton of, you know, initiatives outside of our group, of course. A lot of places in The United States, turned away from from bail. And so I'm not, like, sure on a lot of the specifics here, but, I know that in in some of those places, instead of bail, I think Virginia has been cited as one of these places. They are employing some kind of, like, algorithmic, sentencing. You know? And so, rather than using, like, money as the thing that determines whether or not someone is likely going to stay until their date in in court, they're using, other models, like software driven models to determine if someone's a flight risk. And so, obviously, this comes with its own problems. You know? Like, we we're all familiar with the racism implicit in machine learning algorithms, for example, because you have this garbage in, garbage out problem where if they're fed by people, living in The US, for example, then the implicit biases of these people are gonna get fed into these algorithms. And, so yeah. So that's kind of the, I think, like, where things stand right now. And a lot of people are trying to figure out how best to kind of, yeah, respond to this emerging situation and, you know, hope that by abolishing bail, these places don't just replace it with something that's also bad.
But, that cash bail should just should just end with no replacement. You know? So, I mean, I I guess, are there I don't know if you're aware of, like do you know any other, like, I don't know, maybe another country's model? Is there any option that is, like, either I mean, of course, less shitty, not good, probably, but, like, that doesn't involve, like, this yeah. Needing cash or have probably potentially racist, algorithms?
That's a good question. I've I've been living in Europe now for about a year. And every time I present this work, I ask people, like, do you have anything like bail here? And people are like, I we have no idea what you're talking about. So I think, yeah, there's really no reason for it. I mean, even in a kind of, like, moderate perspective or something, it's like I think what all these places do is they just say, if the crime is below this line, then you don't have to spend time in jail while you await your court date. You know? And then, like, yeah, why present an opportunity where there's gonna be, like, stratifications in, like, how which people
have to be in jail for longer? It's such an American thing to do that. You know? Yeah. There's something uniquely American, but just like there there has there always has to be some sort of, like, punishment Yeah. In the American the American like, it's sort of like, I feel like it comes out of this, like, need that you have to, like, earn everything, like this, like, obsession with merit, maybe. Yeah. That sounds about right. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess so because of this change in, in the American sort of legal and justice landscape, because of basically, I mean, Black Lives Matter movement and how much the amount of money they were able to raise for these different groups. It made sense to sort of wind down Bail Block. But maybe you can share with us some of the the main, like, biggest lessons learned out of that, out of that experience. Because I think hearing hearing the project itself, you can imagine that, basically, you can take the same schema, but just avert the money to some other left wing thing that's, you want funded, like cooperatives, like, strike funds or something like literally anything else, but but by using the the same, same, code.
Yeah. I mean, I think as far as lessons learned, there's there's certainly a lot to say. I mean, some of the criticisms of the project were, like, you know, the, environmental footprint, which I think is is true and and false because the way that people were kind of thinking about it is, like, comparing it to, you know, these big Bitcoin mining farms and stuff. But I am also, like, happy to be winding the project down, knowing that the the footprint is something that has always been on my mind. And I guess also, there were always people who would say, like, oh, this is such a kind of a waste. It's inefficient to run a software or, like, it takes a lot of electricity or, like, it takes a lot of time to generate relatively low amount of of currency. What I'm doing instead is, and you all should too, like, setting up a revolving donation to a Vail Fund. And we were always like, yes. This is, like, the best possible response to this is that they feel inclined now to to not argue about, like, oh, this is, like, an unethical thing to do. Right. Like, the purpose is bad, but just, like,
this one technicality is bad. Now they have to give money.
Yeah. Exactly. So it's, like, kind of a little Trojan horse that allowed us to, like, sail through a lot of these other criticisms. It was like people just taking for granted that, like, yes. Like, cash bail was fucked up and something should be done about it. But, like, this isn't the thing. It should be the side of the thing. It's, like, great. You know? And, yeah, the project has always been open source, and so it's still on our GitHub page, for people to fork. And people have. I'm not aware of any projects that are actively using it right now. And, personally, I I mean, I think that if someone has a good idea for that, they should definitely do it. But I'm kind of more interested in, you know, watching the field of crypto switch to proof of stake, rethinking projects like this in those terms. You know? Yeah. I can think of, like yeah. You know, community investment cooperatives, union coop like like, exactly like you're saying, generating strike funds by staking and stuff like this. And then also, like, thinking about, if if the entire blockchain sphere was run by socialists, you know, like, what what would that look like? And there's, like yeah. You would have, like, housing coin. You'd have, like, food coins. You'd have, like, strike coins. And, like, all of these things would be, you know, swapped around, to meet the needs of everyone. So
Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. That that's sort of like I mean, it's sort of the idea behind Bread Chain a Bits not to, not not to, like, I always feel I always feel weird, like, plugging my own projects. But,
No. But it's good. I wanna hear more about it.
Yeah. Because so originally so we so bread chain, we've been working on basically making in case you guys don't know, it's a it's it's a project that's meant to be sort of like the left wing, response to the blockchain space, which we all know is somewhat dominated by more light re right leaning people, more libertarian minded, more free markets sort of fundamentalists. But we wanted to see, okay, well, what do we we can't just sort of, like, sit on our hands and, like, let them just sort of take over. What is sort of, like, a proper left wing response? How can we sort of redirect these energies towards something that is a bit more, socialist minded? But so the first one we have, of course, is, like, this, bread chain crowd staking protocol, which is how we're sort of, like, the main way of how we're supposed to be funding projects that would be part of the network. And the so the original idea that I had, actually, which is not how how it's done right now, but the original idea, I thought, was, so in Ethereum moving to proof of stake, you're already able to, stake, 32 in order to be part of the, the beacon chain, which is, like, the the first, basically, the the first chain of the or the first, I don't know how to call it. It's basically the start of proof of stake, and then it's going to merge with the proof of work chain. But, anyways, the point was to, in preparation for, like, this this change is that, you would be able to stake your 32 ETH and then provide all of the all of the staked ETH awards, and then you would be able to sort of, like, create a large pool of people who are all giving their their awarded ETH. And then you can sort of, like, choose where you want to put it, which is basically, I mean, the same thing that you basically talked about but with mining.
Right.
So the hope was to do something like that, but realize that it's act it's pretty complicated, especially at the moment just because everything isn't set, in motion yet. So instead of staking ether, we're thinking more of we're doing instead you taking advantage of DeFi protocols where you can stake your DAI, which is the US dollar pegged, stablecoin, and you can stake it, for, basically, for bread chains. So bread chain, the bread chain network would collect all of the awards that you would be generating because of your staked DAI. And then in return, you get bread token, which is meant to be sort of like this local, digital currency, which is also pegged to the dollar because you can always burn it so that you receive all of your dye back. So it's a way of, like, you're able to give without actually losing anything. That was sort of like the the whole point. It's like it's a way for, the hope is that it sort of, makes people feel safer for giving their money or, like, want to give, money without, you know, knowing that they're going to lose it. Because I think sometimes people, they really, really want to give like, I remember, I mean, when whenever Bernie ran the first time, I was pretty poor. So I, like, couldn't give that much money. I was like, but, man, I wanna give a bunch of money. But I couldn't really do it because I didn't have much of it. And because then I would lose it, and that was sort of, like, my fear. But if I could sort of give it for at least the amount of time where I don't need it, which is basically what a bank does, and generates, you know, interest off of that, then, you know, I'm able to give quite a bit more money. So sort of sort of, like, taking this this this idea of just sort of, like, basically collectivized gains and then, deciding to, to put that to somewhere to to better use.
Yeah. I mean, I love it. I I can't wait to see how that progresses and develops. And but I also wonder about, like like, you know, beyond these kind of, like, fundraising tools that we're describing, like, at what point can we reach out and and touch and, like, modify the blockchain itself that these projects are existing on. Like, you know, I can imagine these kind of I mean, maybe this is, like, a silly example or not a silly example, but, like, you know okay. So there like, the the the gender wage gap or something. If everyone was getting paid in Ethereum rather than US dollars on the job market, for example, you can really easily imagine correcting this pay disparity with a line of code. Right? It's like if the average salary of men is greater than the average salary of women for, like, the same job, then, like, you know, women's salary plus plus, for example. Or, like, under the condition that, you know, more than 20% of workers in The US economy feel like they're being exploited and are very unhappy, then, like, financial system, like, stops working because or, like, everything is paused. You know? Like, just kind of, like, what a sort of worker centric blockchain, which is to say, like, democratically and and algorithmically governed financial system, with the code that we can all, like, see and respond to, what would that look like?
Yeah. That So I don't know. That is something that, yeah, I I I've been wanting to explore myself, and I think it's something that's it it's it's I think it sounds interesting maybe to some people, but also we can't I think the real the the realization realization that at least I've gone to is that we can't get there until we have, like, a good grasp of what exists right now. And it's sort of going in, like, knowing that it's imperfect, knowing that it isn't at the moment, it's like a worker oriented blockchain. Of course not. But, like, you know, that that's sort of, like, the hand that we're dealt and we sort of have to deal with it.
Yeah. That's true. This is where the yeah. The, like, sort of strategy of de tournament versus, like, complete, refusal comes into play. Right. But yeah. And and, you know, the system being the way that it is, it would require, what, 51% of of all minors to agree to adapt these new rules or adopt these new rules that we're talking about.
So maybe we're Which I think is it's it's also a really interesting, like I feel like on a blockchain system, I mean, it's not you can't make, like, maybe, like, a very direct comparison, but it's sort of like the your class is very clear under a blockchain. Either you're you're a you're a miner or you're a user, you know, and and it's, you know, very, very similar to, like, thinking of if you think of capitalism as, like, a, you know, a platform, then, you know, there are there are, there are capitalists and there are workers, and the capitalists are sort of generating capital from, from your work, sort of similar to, how a blockchain is sort of set up at the moment. At least, I mean, it's the same thing with proof of stake for people who are staking. I mean, they're just the capitalists at that point, if you can think of it that way. Right. Totally.
I think that you, you need to write a an opinion piece on this.
Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. But, yeah, I think I think there's there's a lot of really, like, if you peel if you peel it back a little bit, I think there's a lot more it's a lot more interesting ways of analyzing it than I think the general left has really been giving it credit for.
Yeah. I think yeah. It's something that you that you brought up, before as well as, like, that the left gets kind of afraid of this space because, they're like, oh, it's it's full of libertarians and and so on. And it's like, yeah. That's true. And that's exactly why it's so important that we intervene. You know, if if worst case scenario is like then this becomes the new global financial system is all blockchain. It's like, well, if it's only libertarians who have been kind of, active here and contributing If Bitcoinization
actually happens, then Yeah.
Fuck. Yeah. It's like it's a an ethical imperative that we get involved, I think, and and intervene and try and redirect some of this and, introduce some new introduce some socialism, to some of these people and to this technology.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think if that does happen, I feel like maybe they're more amenable to socialism than maybe, like, the current regime is, but yeah. Anyways. So I guess out of this experience then, it seems like your overall views didn't change too much even, like, having this experience of, I mean, basically collecting all this Monero and sort of, like, pay paying the bail for all these people. Or or did do you have any sort of, like, I don't know, new thoughts about the technology afterwards?
That's a good question. In some ways, Bail Block is a kind of a cynical project in its relationship to cryptocurrency, because it is about redirecting speculation. You know, it's like purely kind of trying to take some of that energy that's coming out of investors and and redirect their money, redistribute their money. Whereas with something like your project, what you're describing is actually more, like, prefigurative. Like, it it's about building something, actually. So yeah, I don't know. I I I'm just always of two minds, on cryptocurrency precisely for these reasons that a lot of people don't wanna get involved. Like, I totally understand that impulse. But, you know, I also yeah. I I don't see why it is fundamentally at odds with my goals and with the goals of a worker controlled society because, you know, like we were kind of speculating about earlier, there's no reason that the blockchain can't have, you know, encoded into it because it is just a bunch of source code, that it can't have rules that govern society in a more equitable way and, like, enforce, you know, resource redistribution and things like that. Because a socialist society would have to have an automated system, like, take care of a lot of this stuff. It would be, like, nonsensical for that to all be, like, monitored with, like, nineteenth century technology. You know? So in some ways, it's kind of very beautifully set up, for these goals, but it's gonna take a lot of effort just like in anything to to get people to open their minds to that possibility, I think. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if, like,
socialists should just really, really focus on, like, basically imagining a society where you don't have to fucking work. Mhmm. You know, like like, you know, what is what is a post work society look like? And I think to to a certain extent, we're kind of getting there in the sense that's, like, there's just a lot of, like, bullshit jobs out there where people, like, really aren't working all that much, or they're just, like, doing shit that they don't really need to do. So, like, because we we have just, like, a huge amount of surplus of of commodities and things and and food and everything else, at least for the moment. So I don't know. I I feel like if if you really want to talk about people's material conditions, you can, focusing on people's, yeah, how how they whether like, the fact that they don't have to work, I think, would be very appealing. So just making I think, just rebrand the socialist party to, like, I don't know, three day work week party or something like that. Oh, this is so good.
I think that's it. That's the idea. You know? There was that, I can't remember. There's a I guess, a a book. This this phrase is coming to mind, like, demand full automation.
Yeah. I think that was it, Sernick? Sernick? Nick Sernick? Who who made that book? Yeah. You're right. I think so. Yeah. That's As you as you as you could probably tell, I mean, maybe at this point, I've been I've been reading a lot of, like, accelerationist type of stuff. I think that's been influencing me a lot.
Do you see, blockchain as a an inherently accelerationist technology?
I don't know. But I feel like my understanding of accelerationism is that, like, it's that it's sort of like the recognition that things kind of are accelerating and sort of like through that acknowledgment trying to, you know, adjust your your strategy or your your political organizing. Maybe I'm just, like, you know, defining it the way that I would like it to be defined, but that's sort of kind of how I how I'm seeing it. Yeah. That makes sense. I think it does get conflated with the the cynical take, which is, like, should we just accelerate
things to the extent that things collapse faster?
Yeah. Yeah. Usually, it's it's conflated as, like, things have to get worse before they get better. Right. Sort of like, you know, Slavoj Zizek saying that he he would vote for Trump over Hillary as a type of, like, accelerationist thing where, you know, first, we have to first, we have to have the apocalypse. And then from the ashes of society, we will rebuild. Right. I think that's a bit of a maybe in the snowbird. As far as I understand, maybe, like, with Nick Land. I think Nick Land is, like, I think that's probably more his thing. But,
Yeah.
It's not my thing. Yeah. Me neither. Do you have any more suggestions for people if they want to emulate, a similar solution, but for for other end based on that? Or
I think you covered it. No. I mean, I get actually, I mean, one thing that might be interesting for people who are interested in creating similar projects or working with the technology for similar aims is, to recommend some projects to look at. There are a couple of other ones that, have been really inspiring to me. One is Terra Zero, which is this project that I think at its outset, the kind of grand ideal version of it was, to to gift an algorithm or, actually, a smart contract to a forest, and then the forest would kind of sell itself off at a very slow and sustainable rate to loggers. And then it would kind of, like, accumulate those profits. And then over time, it would then be able to, like, buy the next plot of forest. And in this way, it could expand and expand and expand and, like, become, autonomous and free from, you know, human intervention, forever. It can just, like, buy its freedom. They're they've been doing a lot of, like, writing and and projects, to kind of, like, necessarily complicate this idea, because, you know, there are some questions that were posed and and that they're working through. But, it's a very cool project led by very cool people that I recommend everyone check out. There's also Plantoid. Are you familiar with this one?
I I've heard of it before. It was like a an art piece. Right? Yeah. Exactly. It was,
I wanna get her name right.
I think it's Primavera
Di Filippi. Di Filippi. That's right. Yeah. And that one is like she's kind of imagining these these things that could only exist, on blockchain, like, entirely new artistic modes, you know, that is, like, in this case, yeah, it was a sort of sculpture of a flower that then would kind of move, in order to attract people to donate to it. And then it would kinda, like, take those funds, and, eventually, it would, initiate a smart contract that would, like, have a designer design a new version of the Plantoid based on the things that it was doing that was attracting the most humans to donate to it. And then that new one would be placed into public space. And then, therefore, you have this kind of, like, self replicating sort of, organism that kind of reproduces, along the blockchain. And so, yeah, that project in particular is not, like, political in nature, let's say. But, I mean, just thinking creatively about, some of the opportunities, some of the, like, very new modes where you can place rhetoric, you know, on, in blockchain. I think, I would just suggest looking at those things. Also, the book, artists rethinking the blockchain has been central to a lot of the, yeah, the classes that I teach and some of my thinking on the issue. So
Yeah. Yeah. That was, it was a book, from Furtherfield Right. I believe. Had had Ruth on Oh, amazing. A while back. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. We crossed paths many times, during this sort of, like, 2017, 2018. Every art show was a blockchain art show, and so we were constantly put into, proximity. And that was really great because she is, phenomenal.
Yeah. This is, like I guess this was during the time, like, during the bull run, I guess, or maybe a little bit after. Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. So everybody wanted to know what it was. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's funny to hear, you know, all of this stuff about NFTs now. People are like, oh, this new thing, NFTs. I'm like, oh, man. I remember back in 2017 when they sold a cat for $250,000, you know, on Ether. Like
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really yeah. I think people a lot of people had the impression that NFTs just sort of, like, I don't know, artificial they just, like, came out of nowhere, and it's just, like, all of a sudden being pushed by, like, Silicon Valley or something like that, which maybe to a certain extent is kind of true, but to a certain extent is also, like, having no idea about, like, the history behind it. That there was, like, you know, a group of people doing art with blockchain well before they had, before the term NFTs really came into, into the
mainstream. And which is to say nothing of the, terrible aesthetics of the majority of these tokens, these NFTs that get put up for sale.
Like, 90% of the ones that sell seem to be just, like, various just Ethereum or whatever memes. Yeah. For some reason by I guess now now it's sort of like I don't know if you've seen, but, like, the the profile picture ones. Now it's like, everybody has, like, a different profile picture. First, you had the the CryptoPunks. Sure, like, these, like, I think 24 by 24 pixels or something like that. And now you have, like, you got penguins, you got apes, you got, like, every other animal now where they have a set of, like, you know, a thousand different profile pictures that you can buy and say is yours. Oh, wow. Interesting. So, yeah, I'm not that's becoming a thing. Which, I mean, maybe there's something interesting about it. Like, what if we had a, I don't know, communist organization where each member had its own, PFP, on the blockchain. Maybe that's something cool, but I I don't know.
Well, let's try it out.
We'll each have our own, like, little, I don't know. One guy will be Marx. One guy will be, the other philosopher, Engel.
I call Marx. Be a Lenin one. Yeah. Or maybe Trotsky. I don't know.
But yeah. Cool. I think, I'm basically at the end of my question. So maybe to, finish it off, well, first off, it was it was really interesting talking to you, and I'm really glad you're able to share your your experience, about BuildBlock. I think people, if they're interested even a little bit, might as well go and, you know, copy the code and and have it somewhere, just to be able to, yeah, start thinking about maybe how you can do something similar if you're interested. But, yeah, maybe you can share with us where people can keep up with you and your work.
Oh, yeah. You can keep up with me on, well, I have a website, graysonearl.com, which is graysonearle.com. Also on, Instagram at at prism specs, which I should spell out as p r I s m s p e c s, Prism Specs. And, yeah, I'm involved in all kinds of leftist, arts and activist projects. So, definitely, yeah, get in touch. Check out the the projects, and, yeah, I'll see see some of you on the streets,
I imagine. Alright. Cool.
Thanks a lot. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.