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My conversation with @brianmerchant about “Speaking Truth to Crypto Power” at SXSW was one of the few crypto-related events. Crypto prices may be back up, but crypto excitement has not followed.

youtube.com/watch?v=WzqoukQoAo…

#crypto #cryptocurrency

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#Crypto #Cryptocurrency @Brian Merchant
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Molly White
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Molly White
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One noticeable source of excitement at SXSW this year was to do with federated social media and individual sovereignty online. My conversation with @mike on the topic was only one of many: schedule.sxsw.com/2025/events/… (audio only)

#Fediverse


Digital Sovereignty Is the New Influencer Status

SXSW 2025 Schedule | The real power move for creators is ownership and control of their work and livelihoods.
SXSW 2025 Schedule
#fediverse @Mike McCue
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Molly White
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Molly White
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Jay Graber, the CEO of BlueSky, gave a great keynote. She wore a t-shirt that read “mundus sine Caesaribus” (“a world without Caesars”): immediately recognizable to those who had seen Mark Zuckerberg’s custom black-on-black “aut Zuck aut nihil” shirt at a Meta event last year.
I was delighted to see that there was, however, quite a bit of excitement around the fediverse and other online spaces that exist outside of the grasps of tech giants and venture capital. There was an entire “Fediverse House” dedicated to programming regarding federated social media protocols like ActivityPub (which powers Mastodon) and ATproto (which powers BlueSky), and how bloggers, journalists, and other online publishers are building on these platforms in wonderful and sustainable ways. There was also, as with some years past, a “WikiHaus” hosting conversations about open knowledge and fighting the privatization of the web. Such topics made it to the primary conference programming too — I had a panel conversation with Flipboard’s Mike McCue about digital sovereignty (and the audio was recorded, though not the video). There was a great panel about “Openness Under Pressure”, which touched on similar points as my recent newsletter about open access amid widespread AI scraping. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber took the mainstage for a keynote with the inimitable tech journalist (and Bluesky board member) Mike Masnick. She wore an oversized black t-shirt printed with black text that read mundus sine Caesaribus (“a world without Caesars”). It was immediately recognizable to those who had seen Mark Zuckerberg’s custom black-on-black aut Zuck aut nihil (“Zuck or nothing”) shirt at a Meta event last year, an egomaniacal play on aut Caesar aut nihilb and a nod to the emperor after whom Zuc
Side-by-side photos of Zuckerberg and Graber in their respective shirts. Zuckerberg is wearing a dorky pair of Meta AR glasses. Caption: Choose your fighter. Text: Her message was clear: we need a world resilient to the outsized power of Zuckerbergian billionaire emperors. And we need platforms that are, as she and Masnick put it, “billionaire-proof”. I couldn’t agree more.

Darcy Casselman reshared this.

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Molly White
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Molly White
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Sadly, for now we remain in a very much not billionaire-proof world, so I will now update you on how that’s all been going.

Substantially all remaining enforcement cases from the SEC against cryptocurrency companies (and political megadonors) have been dropped, including the lingering cases against Ripple and Kraken I mentioned last issue.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

I mentioned in the last issue that the few SEC cases against the crypto firms-turned-political-megadonors that hadn’t yet been dropped would likely be dropped shortly. As predicted, the CEO of Ripple has just announced that the SEC will drop the remainder of its long-running case against the company, originally filed in 2020.20 While Ripple’s CEO described this as “a resounding victory for Ripple”, he did not draw attention to the fact that the SEC had already won the portion of the case alleging that the company had violated securities laws with its institutional token sales, which landed the company with a $125 million fine in 2023 — though this was well below the $2 billion fine sought by the enforcement agency. The SEC was in the process of appealing a decision that the company’s sales to retail exchanges did not violate securities laws, but this appeal is what will apparently be dropped shortly. Ripple and its executives contributed $48 million to crypto-focused super PACs, $12.6 million to Harris, $5 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and several million more to various other political committees. They’ve also pledged another $25 million to the crypto super PACs for the midterms.
Similarly, Kraken has stated that the SEC has agreed in principle to dismiss its lawsuit against the exchange. As with the case against Coinbase, the SEC will ask for the case to be dismissed with prejudice. Kraken was particularly explicit that this outcome had nothing to do with the facts at issue in the case, writing: “We appreciate the new leadership both at the White House and the Commission that led to this change.”21 Kraken and its executives contributed $1 million each to Trump, Trump’s inauguration fund, and crypto-focused super PACs. Cumberland DRW, the crypto trading portion of DRW, has also announced that the SEC case against them will be dropped.22 The agency had alleged that the firm had sold more than $2 billion in unregistered crypto securities, naming popular crypto assets including Solana and Polygon among them. DRW CEO Don Wilson contributed $100,000 to a crypto-focused super PAC. Finally, NFT company Yuga Labs — best known as the creators of Bored Apes — have said that the SEC has closed an ongoing investigation into the company.23
#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
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Molly White
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Molly White
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The Trump family has reportedly had conversations about acquiring a stake in Binance — as Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao is reportedly seeking a pardon from the president.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family has been in talks to take a financial stake in Binance US, the US business arm of the Binance crypto exchange.17 Although Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao was forced to step down as Binance’s CEO as part of a criminal plea relating to his operation of the exchange, he remains a majority owner of the company — and he has reportedly been seeking a pardon from Trump. According to the Journal, the talks began last year when Binance contacted Trump allies in hopes of finding a route back to serving US customers. The Journal noted: Trump has increasingly blurred the boundaries between the presidency and his business ventures. ... But pursuing a business deal involving a felon seeking a pardon from his administration would be an unprecedented overlap of his business and the government. A stake in Binance.US would also be a striking expansion of the family’s cryptocurrency endeavors as Trump signs a series of executive orders that benefit the industry. Zhao waved off the reporting, writing rather vaguely that “the WSJ article got the facts wrong”.18 However, it should also be noted that Zhao and Binance routinely deny factual reporting about the company.
#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
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Molly White
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Molly White
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Congress has been debating stablecoin bills, and one has advanced to the full Senate thanks to five Democrats who joined all Republicans to vote for it — despite concerns about the power it grants to giant companies and the threat of introducing 2008-esque financial contagion risk.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

Congress has been continuing to consider stablecoin legislation. In the House, lawmakers tussled over the Republican-led STABLE Act, with Maxine Waters (D-CA) condemning it in its current iteration because she believes it “tears down the wall that was used to separate banking from commerce” — potentially opening the doors to serious financial contagion. She urged other Representatives to reintroduce components of her own proposed legislation, introduced in the last Congress, that would establish more significant oversight and penalties for violations.2728 In the Senate, lawmakers argued over a bipartisan GENIUS Act, with Democrats arguing it doesn’t go far enough to protect consumers or national security. “Anyone who thinks the US taxpayer won’t be called on directly or indirectly to bail out these guys is kidding themselves,” argued Senator Warren (D-MA), also expressing concerns about financial contagion that she likened to the 2008 financial crisis. Several proposals to amend the bill failed along party lines, and the Senate Banking Committee ultimately voted to send the bill to the full Senate.29 Five Democrats voted with the Republicans to advance the bill, including Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who received $10 million in campaign backing from the crypto industry. The other four were Senators Rochester (DE), Alsobrooks (MD), Kim (NJ), and Warner (VA).30
In both the House and the Senate, Democrats expressed concerns that big tech giants, including Elon Musk and Twitter, would further entrench their monopoly positions and abuse consumers by beginning to issue stablecoins. Republicans mostly dismissed any arguments against the bills as fearmongering, with Cynthia Lummis (WY) downplaying concerns about crypto’s role in the drug trade by saying, “I want to assure everybody that Machiavelli is not going to get raised from the dead to issue stablecoins so we can destroy our planet with drugs.”29
#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
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Molly White
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Molly White
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trans hate, transphobia

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#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
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Molly White
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Molly White
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Despite Solana's primary claim to fame these days being a memecoin launchpad currently offering “on-chain ballsack” and “Depressed Couch Fart”, the ad depicts a man named “America”, sitting on a therapist’s couch comparing Solana to “multi-planetary travel” and nuclear energy.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

Despite the fact that Solana's primary claim to fame these days is a memecoin launchpad currently offering people the opportunity to invest in such compelling meme tokens as “on-chain ballsack” and “Depressed Couch Fart”, the ad depicts a man named “America”, sitting on a therapist’s couch comparing Solana and crypto more broadly to “multi-planetary travel”, nuclear energy, and the historical innovations that led to the American industrial revolution. pump.fun homepage featuring tokens including Dr Jankui He (JIANKUI), Dog Picasso (Monkey), and FAT NIGGA SEASON (FAT).
#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
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Molly White
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Molly White
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trans hate, transphobia

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#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #uspol #uspolitics
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Molly White
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Molly White
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Finally, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian seems to be permanently several years slow in picking up on tech trends. After insisting in 2023 that play-to-earn games were still the future of gaming, he has now proposed buying TikTok and putting it on the blockchain.

#crypto #cryptocurrency

Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty project will be joined by Reddit co-founder and ex-CEO Alexis Ohanian in their effort to buy Tiktok, with a new addendum by Ohanian: “—and bring it on-chain”. One is forced to wonder if Ohanian has just woken up from a three-year-long nap still believing that “web3” is a buzzword that gets everyone excited these days.31 While Project Liberty has spoken about wanting to “put people in control of their digital identities and data” and suggested “migrat[ing] the [TikTok] platform to a new digital open-source protocol”32 — ideas that sound compelling (if vague) — it’s a shame that Ohanian seems to want to focus their efforts on blockchains. It’s perhaps not surprising, though, given Ohanian’s past investments in crypto-related projects primarily to do with blockchain-based gaming — including the ill-fated Axie Infinity game which suffered a $625 million hack [W3IGG] and then, separately, a total collapse of its in-game economy from which it has never recovered. In January 2022, Ohanian predicted that within five years, 90% of people would refuse to play a game unless they were being paid to do so in crypto (the premise known as play-to-earn).33 He re-upped the five year prediction in 2023, though I’m not sure you’re allowed to just continuously reset the clock like that.34 Given his past blockchain gaming predictions, McCourt might be wise to be a bit more skeptical about Ohanian’s assertions that blockchains will form the futur
#Crypto #Cryptocurrency
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Molly White
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Molly White
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That and more in this week’s issue of Citation Needed, a completely independent publication supported by subscribers like you. Paid subscribers help me keep doing this work, which is always free and never paywalled or regwalled. Consider signing up to support: citationneeded.news/signup/

Citation Needed

Citation Needed
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Molly White
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Molly White
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And for those who prefer to listen, I always record audio versions of my posts, which are available on the link at the top of the thread or on your favorite podcast app. I record them myself; no AI-generated robovoice.

pod.link/1719025552


Molly White's Citation Needed

Keep up with the happenings in the tech world without all the boosterism. Cryptocurrency critic, technology researcher, and software engineer Molly White publishes Citation Needed, a newsletter that features weekly explainers of developments in the c…
pod.link
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Dorothea Salo
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Dorothea Salo
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...

...

...

wat.

like, is this the next "Tumblr is the next PDF"?

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to Molly White

Marcus
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Marcus
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Putting TokTok on "the blockchain" is brilliant. While he's at it, he should mix in GeoCities, peanut butter and used fry oil. Step 3: Profit!!
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Pax Ahimsa Gethen
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Pax Ahimsa Gethen
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trans hate, transphobia

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FinchHaven sfba
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FinchHaven sfba
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"currently offering “on-chain ballsack”"

Climbing very late on the bandwagon for Alabama and Texas high school boys and the "Truck Nutz" fad that gets hung off the trailer hitch of their lifted Ford F-350s

Do *not* web search for it...

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
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Howard Chu @ Symas
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Howard Chu @ Symas
• •
I thought Solana's only claim to fame was "most downtime of any blockchain project". Or maybe it's "most inept developers of any blockchain project". Same thing.
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Chris L
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Chris L
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this means the covering scams and frauds side of your work will be safe indefinitely. No chance of things getting boring and safe for regular people.
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Feike
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Feike
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Mundus Libertatis, Aequalitatis et Justitiae ante Legem.

A world of liberty, equality and justice before the law.

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🔻Fr∴ Haën🔻
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🔻Fr∴ Haën🔻
• •
Well, she is another CEOsar and BlueSky is one bad decision away from becoming just like them. I've seen too many persons and companies take this wrong turn to muster the trust anymore.
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フィリップ
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フィリップ
• •
@mike We tend to use the term self-sovereignty to differentiate from regional sovereignty when describing concepts such as identity and personal (or private) data control.
@Mike McCue
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Rachel has moved...!
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Rachel has moved...!
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Thank you, belatedly, for being one of the few to ever make clear the meaninglessness of the "Web3" term that was going around for a while.

To put this out there again, as I figure more clarification on it does not hurt:

There is the scholarly construct, Web 3.0, and then there is the crypto marketing term "Web3".

The former, again, is a scholarly construct. The latter, again, is a marketing term, used to hijack clout (from vague associations with the Web 3.0 construct) to push crypto grifts.

Even Richard Stallman did not seem to understand this, as he for some reason gave a keynote at a "Web3" conference where he was asked about crypto and replied, in essence, "Idk. That's not really my cup of tea."

#tech #web #finance #words #grift

#Web #finance #tech #grift #words
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Jared “Indie Social Web” White
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Jared “Indie Social Web” White
• •

@resl At the height of the web3 hype cycle, back when I was on the birdsite, I shouted until I was blue in the face that "web3" was fake, it wasn't real, it's not the web, it's not a standard, it's not published by the W3C, and it's basically a massive grift. I had so many people argue with me, sometimes outright insulting me for my outrageous take. 😅

And yet, here we are.

@Rachel has moved...!
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Rachel has moved...!
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Rachel has moved...!
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@jaredwhite Yes! It is good to e-meet a kindred spirit such as yourself. It isn't that the ethics underlying this sentiment are rare.

It's that it's unfortunately rare to find others as disturbed by the debacle and as driven to get to the bottom of it as we have been, apparently!

(At least visibly on social media (which is one of the few places I meet or interact with people these days, as I continue to social distance to prevent CoVID spread)).

@Jared “Indie Social Web” White
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Rachel has moved...!
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Rachel has moved...!
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@jaredwhite
It is really frustrating to understand something that protects you, try to share the info, and be ignored or judged harshly for trying. It kills me. It's the story of my life at this point lol

@molly0xfff @brianmerchant @resl

@Jared “Indie Social Web” White @Molly White @Brian Merchant @Rachel has moved...!

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