Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. So Tracy, obviously,
Speaker 1: we've been doing a lot of crypto episodes lately, talking
Speaker 1: about like bitcoin and its future, a lot about Defy lately.
Speaker 1: But of course, like when all this got started, I remember,
Speaker 1: like years ago, like people thought this was like very
Speaker 1: like dangerous, sort of like provocative technology that you know,
Speaker 1: people like, oh, are they gonna ban Bitcoin? Are they
Speaker 1: going to ban all this stuff? Um, it feels like
Speaker 1: I don't know. My opinion is that it feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff is like now the dollar
Speaker 1: signs are in there, a lot of that stuff has
Speaker 1: been sort of like forgotten about, her sanitized away. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you still see hints of it when people
Speaker 1: talk about the potential regulatory response on things like DeFi
Speaker 1: and the idea of people create synthetic stocks that basically
Speaker 1: bypass regulations, Like, there is a hint of it there.
Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right that bitcoin and the associated technology
Speaker 1: blockchain kind of started out as this crypto anarchist dream
Speaker 1: that was very much about maybe not undermining or actually
Speaker 1: I think you could say undermining or bypassing um existing
Speaker 1: authorities and creating something that was sort of immutable and
Speaker 1: also outside of their reach, right, like something that totally
Speaker 1: has its own internal governance, that is permission list that
Speaker 1: anyone can access, that is extremely um sort of durable
Speaker 1: to an outside attack, very difficult to thwart. Like this
Speaker 1: was sort of like the philosophical underpinnings of it. And
Speaker 1: now you have people on Wall Street talking about like, oh,
Speaker 1: is bitcoin player role in your retirement portfolio like gold?
Speaker 1: Or can we trade synthetics soybean futures, uh, the ethereum
Speaker 1: and like all that is like theoretically kind of exciting,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel very uh, it doesn't feel very
Speaker 1: cypherpunk like at least like how we thought of all
Speaker 1: this stuff in the early days. No. I think it's
Speaker 1: like that classic thing about if the technology lives long enough,
Speaker 1: it's eventually going to be co opted by Wall Street
Speaker 1: and the thing that it probably sought to disrupt, right,
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking again about peer to peer lending and
Speaker 1: how that was supposed to bypass traditional banks and then
Speaker 1: eventually all the banks just got in on it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, I think with all the excitement over
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency prices as well as the potential for defy. We've
Speaker 1: sort of drifted away from the original crypto anarchist or
Speaker 1: cyber punk dream. You know that that raises all kinds
Speaker 1: of questions because there's like this marriage happening between crypto
Speaker 1: and Wall Street, And sometimes I think it's I kind
Speaker 1: of going to be like oil and water, Like it
Speaker 1: looks good on paper, but can the too really interact?
Speaker 1: And then of course, like the question is like, well
Speaker 1: what happens, Like okay, like maybe they can be tamed
Speaker 1: and be used to profit, but nonetheless, decentralized distributed uh
Speaker 1: software databases still extremely powerful, and perhaps we forget that
Speaker 1: some of the original motivation behind it at our peril. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to push back on that last point, but
Speaker 1: I do I do agree with you that, like there
Speaker 1: is a tension between Wall Street getting in on technology,
Speaker 1: which is basically all about sort of decentralizing control, right
Speaker 1: and Wall Street slash finance slash banks are very much
Speaker 1: about having I mean basically they're all about having control,
Speaker 1: risk control systems in place. Um and so there's sort
Speaker 1: of an open question about how useful a decentralized technology
Speaker 1: is going to actually be with um to them exactly right. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, after all, after all this talk of money
Speaker 1: on recent episodes, it's good to go back to philosophy
Speaker 1: a little bit and what these systems really are. And
Speaker 1: we have the perfect guests. Are we doing blockchain not bitcoin?
Speaker 1: Kind of kind of? I think that's maybe one way
Speaker 1: to put it. I think we have like the perfect guys.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a legendary figure in the crypto world. Um,
Speaker 1: we're going to be speaking with laud Zamfeer. He's currently
Speaker 1: an independent researcher for the Ethereum Foundation. He's actually been
Speaker 1: with involved in the Ethereum project since before launched, actually
Speaker 1: in April. Before that, he was a very early bitcoiner
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, everyone else likes to talk
Speaker 1: about price Vlaude rights, the sort of more philosophical pieces
Speaker 1: about blockchains and this sort of the power of this software,
Speaker 1: which he seems to recognize both the potential and the
Speaker 1: risks for uh so extremely influential player in the space.
Speaker 1: He also characterizes himself, in addition to being a philosopher
Speaker 1: and a formal student of the law, an absurdist. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna find out what that means. Vlaud, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Thanks Joe, I'm a longtime
Speaker 1: fan of yours. Thank you, And I'm excited to be
Speaker 1: here and you know, excited to talk about all these
Speaker 1: pressing issues that we have today in this space. So
Speaker 1: what do you kick us off? I mentioned your like
Speaker 1: history a little bit. You're pretty early, You're much earlier
Speaker 1: into bitcoin than most people. Then you're got involved with
Speaker 1: the Ethereum Foundation before it actually officially launched as a
Speaker 1: tradeable coin. What do you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your background? What drew you to this space as an
Speaker 1: area of research and interest. Well, I got into bitcoin
Speaker 1: during the Cyprus Bilian sort of financial crisis during like um,
Speaker 1: it was like one of those crises where like the
Speaker 1: government there decided to like seize money from people's make
Speaker 1: accounts in order to pay back that to the you
Speaker 1: and and then like bitcoin kind of like I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of headlines then because like people were using
Speaker 1: it in order to evade this capture. And so for me,
Speaker 1: like I got into bitcoin as like kind of like
Speaker 1: revolutionary like financial technology that would like help save people
Speaker 1: from like capital controls, inflation and like you know this
Speaker 1: kind of like you know that like the global financial
Speaker 1: system has been like co opted by like the law everywhere.
Speaker 1: The bitcoin provided a kind of escape, and so I
Speaker 1: was in the bitcoin for this kind of escapist you know,
Speaker 1: cipher palm kind of like radical like we can escape
Speaker 1: the central banking system kind of agenda, and like that
Speaker 1: was exciting. Like I was excited you know, for like
Speaker 1: the future of money at the time, and like I
Speaker 1: was really like a bitcoin and thrown through in that way.
Speaker 1: And then I got interested in ethereum um when I
Speaker 1: kind of realized that like this you know, just like
Speaker 1: the blockchain and not bitcoin kind of story where actually
Speaker 1: like the technology like is useful way way outside the
Speaker 1: scope Bitcoin, and it's something where we potentially use this
Speaker 1: to like decentralize, you know, all sorts of things and
Speaker 1: to disintermediate into like a kind of you know, do
Speaker 1: things without going through gatekeepers, you know, a way outside
Speaker 1: of just money and finance. And I was interested in
Speaker 1: like decentralizing academia or like peer review through like content
Speaker 1: curation and things like this, which are kind of like
Speaker 1: still in somewhere very much part of ethereum um Um.
Speaker 1: I definitely want to talk about some potential use cases
Speaker 1: of the technology. But I also sort of want to
Speaker 1: jump in with one major question um, which relates to
Speaker 1: what you were just saying about the original vision for
Speaker 1: bitcoin and why you got interested in it. But Joe
Speaker 1: has been writing a lot about Wall Street embracing ethereum,
Speaker 1: or being pilled, as he puts it, So I'm just curious, like, what,
Speaker 1: what do you think what is it about ethereum that
Speaker 1: has caused it to be embraced by the financial community,
Speaker 1: like a community that a lot of people would say
Speaker 1: it should probably be bypassing all together. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: in some way you could say that it is, but
Speaker 1: I would say, like this basically, like the theory is
Speaker 1: very much not Bitcoin, and it was like set up
Speaker 1: in some way to like fill some of the gaps
Speaker 1: both like politically and technically that Bitcoin left open, and
Speaker 1: so ethereum like you know, very much like contrast itself
Speaker 1: to Bitcoin politically, legally, and also has this kind of
Speaker 1: programmable layer where you can build a lot of applications
Speaker 1: that are basically like not possible in Bitcoin, and those
Speaker 1: include things like famously all this DeFi stuff that work
Speaker 1: intro the conversation with that, like is in some way
Speaker 1: like financial wizard dream today and so and so, there's
Speaker 1: like in some way like there is interesting financial stuff
Speaker 1: that happens on ethereum and ethereum and the way it's
Speaker 1: like postured and positioned, it's it's not like the future
Speaker 1: of money and the way Bitcoin is, Like it's hard
Speaker 1: to understated how much not bitcoin etheroreum is because of
Speaker 1: the kind of poor representation that theorem gets in the medium.
Speaker 1: But like if you kind of like are in the scene,
Speaker 1: like you deal very much like ethereum is not a Bitcoin,
Speaker 1: and and I think that that the kind of it's
Speaker 1: not being bigcoin and it posturing in a way that's
Speaker 1: a much more general morphous you know, you can project
Speaker 1: your own fantasies onto it. It's not like the future
Speaker 1: of money in the same kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: clear defined kind of way that bitcoin tries to be.
Speaker 1: And so and so I think it has like a
Speaker 1: niche and crypto currency and blockchain like it kind of
Speaker 1: and it kind of like created and changed the way
Speaker 1: that people even think about the space from like you know,
Speaker 1: just thinking about like this the kind of money and
Speaker 1: finance narratives actually to get much broader than that which
Speaker 1: in some way, let's it actually provide a safe space
Speaker 1: for some of the financial activity. But that's also very
Speaker 1: questionable in terms of like how safe is it really
Speaker 1: to like, you know, do these things without like New
Speaker 1: York being super down with it? And so on? They
Speaker 1: what you say, They're like, do these things without New
Speaker 1: York being super down with It's something that I like
Speaker 1: struggle with our question a lot because, like, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, like blockchains are theoretically unsensible, and we could
Speaker 1: get into how realistic that is, but like that is
Speaker 1: sort of the story, like Okay, you you set the
Speaker 1: software free, and you theoretically can't stop it. In theory, though,
Speaker 1: one can imagine like, um, someone looking at a decentralized
Speaker 1: lending protocol or something that certainly looks like a stock
Speaker 1: market that runs on the theoreum and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: regular saying this is illegal. This is like securities fraud
Speaker 1: or selling of unregistered securities. Do you expect an inevitable
Speaker 1: clash on that level? And do you think people within
Speaker 1: the sort of crypto blockchain community are naive about thinking
Speaker 1: that the law will just sort of not be an
Speaker 1: impediment in the end, Well, I mean certainly to some extent.
Speaker 1: But I think what they really think is they think
Speaker 1: that they've thought this through and they see how it
Speaker 1: will play out, and that they're going to win, and
Speaker 1: that like, you know, the time is right for this
Speaker 1: revolution and like they can do this without New York's
Speaker 1: approval and like they're just gonna win, you know. But
Speaker 1: basically like they have this like view actually like a
Speaker 1: different view of like the legal reality. They're like they
Speaker 1: don't they like I think they're ready to call New
Speaker 1: York's bluff and to say like, hey, like you know,
Speaker 1: you can't tell us what to do on the blockchain,
Speaker 1: like this is not New York, you know. But then
Speaker 1: of course you know you're gonna interact with a smart
Speaker 1: contract and then like get into like a legal relationship
Speaker 1: with someone in New York and then be suited and
Speaker 1: then you're like going to the States one day, Like
Speaker 1: you know, it's there's obviously ways in which you know
Speaker 1: this is going to come to a head and where
Speaker 1: people are going to get in trouble legally because of
Speaker 1: the stuff and normally use it a place for conflict.
Speaker 1: It's like a place where like it's guaranteed that there's
Speaker 1: going to be conflict. There's no way to get around
Speaker 1: that just because of the basic like let's say legal
Speaker 1: political realities of of defy and of blockchain and blockchain governance.
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit more about the mutability
Speaker 1: idea of blockchain? So Joe just touched on this, and
Speaker 1: I think we have to talk about it because it's
Speaker 1: sort of central to the use case of the technology, right,
Speaker 1: this idea that you can build a code that can
Speaker 1: basically exist and be the thing around which like multiple
Speaker 1: players or two people can come to an agreement and
Speaker 1: it means they don't have to have a middleman, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, it allows for these sort of trust less
Speaker 1: transactions and things like that. But I guess my question is,
Speaker 1: like how immutable is blockchain actually, given that we've had
Speaker 1: incidents of the chain or the code being corrupted, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm aware that as we're recording this, I
Speaker 1: think it's like almost the five year anniversary of the
Speaker 1: Dow attack when you had, you know, someone who basically
Speaker 1: drained the Dow of all the ether it had collected
Speaker 1: from the sale of its tokens. I think that happened
Speaker 1: in like June five years ago something like that. So
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, like how safe, how rely doable is
Speaker 1: the blockchain if we're going to be relying on it
Speaker 1: um for all these different transactions. Yeah, I mean, well
Speaker 1: there's a lot to impack there, but like these are
Speaker 1: topics that are very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1: And I would say firstly that like, Okay, I think
Speaker 1: like the true like revolutionary potential blockchain isn't because of
Speaker 1: the immutability thing. Like I don't think it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't think immutability thing is really anything more than like
Speaker 1: misinformation or disinformation about the nature of blockchain in order
Speaker 1: to kind of manage the way that we have conflict
Speaker 1: about blockchain tech, and so like that it's like a
Speaker 1: tactical misinformation that happened from the start in order to
Speaker 1: protect the blockchain from like what we're seeing as like
Speaker 1: political legal adversaries that are too strong for us to
Speaker 1: have like a independent, like legal way to manage dispuse
Speaker 1: like the Instead, we kind of have this sperchine where
Speaker 1: basically like we're supposed to not argue about or supposed
Speaker 1: to not really change the protocol. And I think like
Speaker 1: the real kind of like potential doesn't come really from
Speaker 1: the immutability as much as from the fact that this
Speaker 1: is a new kind of cyberspace. Is that like isn't
Speaker 1: owned by like the guy who owns this one server.
Speaker 1: Is kind of like a cyberspace that's in a different
Speaker 1: kind of space that's like maybe more shared than as
Speaker 1: possible in like today's like software as a service kind
Speaker 1: of model. And so it's this in the ways in
Speaker 1: which we can fight over and the ways we're gonna
Speaker 1: have disputes over the governance of this space. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to be limited by immutability, and I
Speaker 1: think that's going to actually unlock a lot of value
Speaker 1: in blockchain to kind of for us to get over
Speaker 1: this idea that it's useful because it's immutable, and that
Speaker 1: is trusted because it's immutable. I mean, it's like saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you can trust me, I put myself in a straight jacket.
Speaker 1: Like that's something someone who's not very trustworthy you would say,
Speaker 1: you know that, someone who's like kind of like maybe
Speaker 1: up to something else would say and and and and and.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, you know, basically, like one way to
Speaker 1: say it is that the norm of not disputing the
Speaker 1: software was associated tightly with the software, so tightly that
Speaker 1: you don't even learn about blockchain without learning about the
Speaker 1: imutabality thing, and that has created this amazing international legal
Speaker 1: order that is basically extremely depu you know, like it's
Speaker 1: like says the software is like not allowed to be changed,
Speaker 1: and like it doesn't matter like who wants it or
Speaker 1: like what is happening, Like you know, it's a really
Speaker 1: kind of radical founding fallacy or founding trick or like
Speaker 1: founding disinformation in like the cryptocurrency space that we talk
Speaker 1: about the history of a little more. But all this
Speaker 1: is to say, look, I don't think that it's immutability
Speaker 1: as much as this question of like this new type
Speaker 1: of space that we could that we have, you know,
Speaker 1: because like you know, you can't shut down a server
Speaker 1: or regulate a server in order to regulate a cyberspace
Speaker 1: in the way that like it's kind of expected in
Speaker 1: the cyberspace today, and so I think it creates new
Speaker 1: political and legal ground for dispute and this and and
Speaker 1: to Toshi and co. Kind of tried to front run
Speaker 1: this by saying it's immutable and like we decided that
Speaker 1: this is the protocol forever. But like that is kind
Speaker 1: of bullshit. But that doesn't mean that blockchain is not useful.
Speaker 1: It's it's quite you know, quite the opposite again, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about this idea a little bit more So. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if I'm running an application that's like on Amazon Web
Speaker 1: Services AWS, that's space that they own and I have
Speaker 1: to play by their rules and Amazon has to play
Speaker 1: by the government's rules, and that's pretty straightforward. If I'm
Speaker 1: building an application on ethereum, it isn't, uh that obviously
Speaker 1: creates new things. So what do you talk us through
Speaker 1: like some of the implications of this if we're talking
Speaker 1: about the real power of blockchain is not the immutability
Speaker 1: per se, but the idea of like a new I
Speaker 1: guess it's like a new shape of space that exists
Speaker 1: that's sort of like outside of the conventional way we
Speaker 1: think about like service as a software. What makes that
Speaker 1: so revolutionary? And what do you see as the sort
Speaker 1: of like what's the conflict model I guess within that
Speaker 1: new role? Yeah, so today the dominant conflict model is
Speaker 1: like misimutability thing that we kind of just talked about,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly, you know, not really like sustainable or
Speaker 1: defensible or like analytically, like you can kind of just
Speaker 1: tell like not just from history, but like from like
Speaker 1: the institutional arrangements that like Okay, it's like it's obviously
Speaker 1: not like actually immutable. Like nothing is like really like
Speaker 1: actually immutable. That's not like a real you know thing
Speaker 1: for tech objects. You know, there's like always governance, and
Speaker 1: so like the what this basically means that like the
Speaker 1: model for conflicts for this new space is basically like
Speaker 1: on determined and determined. Basically there's no way that like
Speaker 1: anyone can say by like decree like what it's going
Speaker 1: to be because basically no one has that legal competence
Speaker 1: or authority and and it's kind of like it kind
Speaker 1: of is forcing us to reckon with the fact that
Speaker 1: law doesn't just exist inside national borders and that like
Speaker 1: you know, we have to deal with the way we
Speaker 1: have disputes over software that doesn't exist and can't just
Speaker 1: be subject to this command and control line that you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Well, just to follow up on this a
Speaker 1: little bit more, I mean, like what is I mean,
Speaker 1: what makes it so powerful and revolutionary because like in theory,
Speaker 1: like with bitcoin, like that is you know, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to change it may not be strictly speaking permanently immutable,
Speaker 1: but we know, like it is really hard to change.
Speaker 1: But what is the power that gets unlocked in your
Speaker 1: view by creating this new space, this new type of software.
Speaker 1: It's like the power that's created by you know, having
Speaker 1: somewhere that's outside of like the jurisdiction of your state authority,
Speaker 1: which like today and for the most part it's like
Speaker 1: charged with like maintaining legal order. And so you know,
Speaker 1: it's basically like in some way, like you know, you
Speaker 1: just aren't subject to the same disputes from the same
Speaker 1: parties that you like normally would. So like you know, normally,
Speaker 1: if you were to try to start unregistered securities exchange,
Speaker 1: that you can really like just like you know, tell
Speaker 1: you like no, you have to stop, and then like
Speaker 1: you know, whereas like in crypto like defy today, it's
Speaker 1: like not so simple basically because it's not clear exactly
Speaker 1: like how that plays out, like you know, in the
Speaker 1: terms of the like life span and that conflict. And
Speaker 1: then if it doesn't play out right, you can actually
Speaker 1: create a bigger problem through trying to to try and
Speaker 1: shut it down, um and so and so there's kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, the legal nondeterminism, like a legal uncertainty
Speaker 1: that it makes it difficult to see you know, like
Speaker 1: how is the unit swap going to be like regulated
Speaker 1: in the US, for example, or like lots of other
Speaker 1: questions you know where where where it just there's there's
Speaker 1: no legal opinion in the world that like it's just right,
Speaker 1: and it's like a matter of like the like you know,
Speaker 1: real like legal nondeterminism. And so I think that like
Speaker 1: creates a tremendous opportunity because it's like politically uncontested territory
Speaker 1: or politically non uncontested, but politically contested is what I
Speaker 1: mean territory, uh, and so and so that and so
Speaker 1: it's a kind of whole place for like, you know,
Speaker 1: not just people who like want to escape finance, but
Speaker 1: also people who want to like maintain the same ifty
Speaker 1: of their financial systems. But also not just in finance,
Speaker 1: but you know because ultimately with like ethereum and like
Speaker 1: blockchain not bitcoin, we kind of go away beyond just
Speaker 1: just finance. So two questions here, and they're related to
Speaker 1: the points you were just making. But can you maybe
Speaker 1: elaborate on the use cases for blockchain technology? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about defy defy, UM, making
Speaker 1: synthetic stocks, things like that. Um, But you mentioned a
Speaker 1: few other potential use cases like curation earlier, and I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear more about those. But secondly, how desirable
Speaker 1: is it to basically bypass these sensitive or politically contested areas,
Speaker 1: Like you know, a lot of people would argue that
Speaker 1: regulation exists for a reason. Um, there's a reason why
Speaker 1: finance in particular, UM is heavily regulated. So I guess
Speaker 1: maybe just elaborate a little bit more on on your
Speaker 1: last point, like why would you want this? Why is
Speaker 1: this a desirable thing to have? Yeah, so so let
Speaker 1: me say that, Like, Okay, I think answer in a
Speaker 1: reverse order. Um, So I don't think the escape is
Speaker 1: like realistic or desirable, but I think what is. You know,
Speaker 1: something we have to face is the fact that, like
Speaker 1: we don't have a national or state authority that can
Speaker 1: call the shots and so and so what that means
Speaker 1: that we need to develop legal ability legal security without
Speaker 1: having the ability to rely on like state enforced rules
Speaker 1: and so. What that means is, you know, the nature
Speaker 1: of law today as we understand it needs to kind
Speaker 1: of like or let me take a step back, Like
Speaker 1: the most powerful legal forms today aren't equipped to deal
Speaker 1: with this particular conflict, and so it creates a trendous
Speaker 1: opportunity to for us to find ways to manage our
Speaker 1: conflicts in a in a in a scope where that
Speaker 1: doesn't easily lend itself to the like existing like most
Speaker 1: powerful legal forms and so and so that is like
Speaker 1: a tremendous opportunity. But I don't think of it as
Speaker 1: escaping law. I think if it is discovering law actually
Speaker 1: and discovering you know, and and and and being kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, secure in our conflicts without having
Speaker 1: this state that can enforce rules and that so that
Speaker 1: we can mediate our our experience of law through like
Speaker 1: the state. Because because no one wants to create like
Speaker 1: a global crypto law state that will enforce the rules
Speaker 1: on crypto you know, it's like there's like a push
Speaker 1: against that kind of like global state in the law
Speaker 1: and just in like you know, just like basic common
Speaker 1: sense of like how is this going to be abused
Speaker 1: and corrupted? But thankfully that we have a tremendous legal
Speaker 1: history in the world, and we have like tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of legal culture and it's not doesn't just boil down
Speaker 1: to state rules, and so we have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: have important legal disputes in a way that is in
Speaker 1: some way not according to the normal status quo. And
Speaker 1: that is trendously interesting. However, as you say, like the
Speaker 1: idea of escaping law is fallacious and dangerous and facilitates
Speaker 1: a lot of bad stuff, and and certainly I don't
Speaker 1: advocate legal escapism. I like I would love to you know,
Speaker 1: fight it, in particular in the context of crypto, because
Speaker 1: like people have this idea that just because it's not
Speaker 1: in this jurisdiction of a state, that that there's no law,
Speaker 1: and that's just incredibly untrue on like a deep, deep
Speaker 1: analytical basis, and it keep deep in a political way
Speaker 1: where like it's impossible to escape the law, like it's
Speaker 1: just not that's like not a thing. And so it's
Speaker 1: just like it's just that like the particular you know,
Speaker 1: state enforced rules legal form that people are like lazily
Speaker 1: expect to like always work, you know, but even though
Speaker 1: like you know, it like obviously like doesn't always doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And so then they and then so then they get
Speaker 1: themselves crazy thinking like I can escape, you know, like
Speaker 1: the law, but like that's not that's not reality, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the reality is that like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter where you go, like you bring the law
Speaker 1: with you, and other people will bring a law to you. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think it just forces us to re evaluate
Speaker 1: as opposed to letting us escape, and that kind of
Speaker 1: like new situation where we have like where we have
Speaker 1: to deal with our conflicts in a new way. Um.
Speaker 1: It's super interesting. Although unfortunately today is dominated by this
Speaker 1: a mutability norm, which basically is kind of having people
Speaker 1: pretend like, oh, they can't interfere with the software, like
Speaker 1: the software is just like fully autonomous, which I think
Speaker 1: is crazy talk because like you know, nothing is above
Speaker 1: the law, like nothing is in subject to dispute. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's no way in which like software will ever
Speaker 1: be above the law. And so it's only a matter
Speaker 1: of time before mutability becomes kind of like sidelined and
Speaker 1: minimize and we have to find another way to be
Speaker 1: secure in our conflicts around blockchain and cryptom Okay, so
Speaker 1: you say, like it's kind of crazy talk to the
Speaker 1: immutability norm, but it is also true that if New
Speaker 1: York regulators were like unite swap is illegal now there
Speaker 1: they can't. In the past that they could there was
Speaker 1: a entity offering some sort of like exchange that they
Speaker 1: didn't want. Like I'm thinking, like, okay, like when there
Speaker 1: used to be betting, you know, more betting markets that
Speaker 1: were available in the United States on centralized by run
Speaker 1: by centralized companies or gambling or whatever, and a regulator
Speaker 1: could say this is illegal now and it would go
Speaker 1: away and that would be it. But if a regulator
Speaker 1: said in theory where you can't do you to swap
Speaker 1: anymore or something like that, it obviously isn't that isn't easy.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, it's not above the law, and maybe
Speaker 1: immutability is unrealistic. But it's obviously a very different interaction
Speaker 1: than it was before when it was like say the
Speaker 1: regulators kicking out online poker site. So in your in
Speaker 1: your vision, how does this sort of like traditional notion
Speaker 1: of law enforcement and regulation interact with this new with
Speaker 1: this new uh, with this new model. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean that's a that's a challenging question. And basically, like
Speaker 1: the easy thing to say is okay, well, you know
Speaker 1: they get to I mean, they still have like all
Speaker 1: of their like local and also internet legal means, and
Speaker 1: they still have the ability to issue sanctions and to
Speaker 1: say like oh no, like that's criminal, Like oh no,
Speaker 1: like you know, don't send money to this address because
Speaker 1: like you know, or like don't buy like this token
Speaker 1: because like and you're just like supporting terrorists, like you know.
Speaker 1: They have this authority to do these things, and those
Speaker 1: will be and there will be like real legal consequences
Speaker 1: for people who find themselves in the you know, in
Speaker 1: like let's say, like the scope of US law, which
Speaker 1: is fast and so it's not like they don't have
Speaker 1: means of regulating many persons that are in the law
Speaker 1: who would be maybe using these systems, And so I
Speaker 1: don't want to minimize that because there's a lot there,
Speaker 1: But I also want to say that like you know,
Speaker 1: because of yes, I mutability, but more more generally, because
Speaker 1: of the these protocols need to be used everywhere, you know,
Speaker 1: or not everywhere. But we could like if if they
Speaker 1: were to like say, mandated change to the theory and
Speaker 1: protocol in order to let them shut down youn swap,
Speaker 1: like that would become like theory in USA or something,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be the same, right, so you need
Speaker 1: to kind of like there needs to be like a
Speaker 1: different level of kind of legitimacy and coordination and opt
Speaker 1: in on a global basis for a dispute brought by
Speaker 1: you know, someone to to lead to this change and
Speaker 1: so and so there's kind of like this sort of
Speaker 1: like nebulous culture that is going to like you know,
Speaker 1: like judge the legitimacy of this legal order and then
Speaker 1: say whether like you know like like budge for it,
Speaker 1: and and and in some way immutability already says no,
Speaker 1: like very much like no to all of it, and
Speaker 1: so like because like that's like the status quote today,
Speaker 1: it's quite hard to imagine. However, you know, in the future,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have like a basically you know, let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, mediums are having these disputes. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, we just like accept state
Speaker 1: authority to like tell us what to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: because that's like not the ethos at all, but where
Speaker 1: we like you know, don't want to like do like
Speaker 1: and allow like all of the worst behavior. Like you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to have like your cake and need
Speaker 1: it too, you know there there you basically need to
Speaker 1: be secure about your ability to manage these conflicts and
Speaker 1: to say like you're you have a right to have
Speaker 1: your sanctions and we have the right to have our sanctions,
Speaker 1: and like you know, we're not even like a single
Speaker 1: body politic and so and so, like we're not gonna
Speaker 1: understand have like official like here is like you know,
Speaker 1: like the etheroryum, like the sanctions that like the THEORYM
Speaker 1: will respect or anything like that. But through the course
Speaker 1: of disputes and through the course of you know, the
Speaker 1: various like events that are going to happen in crypto,
Speaker 1: you know these things are going to change basically, and
Speaker 1: you know it's up to kind of like people with
Speaker 1: right legal minds to kind of try to like front
Speaker 1: run all these situations and figure out how we can
Speaker 1: prevent some of these very bad outcomes. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: just on that note, like what does this actually mean
Speaker 1: for society? And I know this is something that you
Speaker 1: Um and Vitalic have touched upon before. You know, this
Speaker 1: idea that society is basic built on contracts and what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is a new type of contract technology
Speaker 1: or a new space um for agreeing contracts in and
Speaker 1: you know, potentially I take your point earlier, but potentially
Speaker 1: contracts that can sort of like outlive or exist beyond
Speaker 1: the reach of um I guess, uh, coordinated legal systems.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's one way of putting it, Like what does
Speaker 1: this mean for society as a whole? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's an excellent question that I don't think
Speaker 1: it has like a super simple answer other than like,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to reckon with the fact that
Speaker 1: we have this kind of space now that we need
Speaker 1: to govern and to understand like how we have conflict
Speaker 1: over and around the kind of like first thing to
Speaker 1: note them that I have to mention it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: smart contracts aren't actually contracts, like like legal contracts like
Speaker 1: exist in the law, like smart contracts are like in
Speaker 1: the ether, inpersual machine, like in contract a terms like
Speaker 1: smart contracts and more about execution than actually like contracting,
Speaker 1: and so like you know, they're not really contracts. They're
Speaker 1: more like something you might use when you're trying to
Speaker 1: avoid getting into a contract, and then you might accidentally
Speaker 1: get into a contract in some cases. But in terms
Speaker 1: of contract law, like I mean, you can't expect too
Speaker 1: much change. I mean, contract law is like you know,
Speaker 1: like extremely robust, and like, you know, we've been throw
Speaker 1: a lot in contract law and it's not like you know,
Speaker 1: like smart contracts are like a new paradigm and contract
Speaker 1: law really, although they may be a way to, um,
Speaker 1: let's say, execute some terms of a contract in some cases,
Speaker 1: like for the most part, smart contracts are not legal contracts.
Speaker 1: And it's it's kind of in a misnomer that's been
Speaker 1: both tactical and extremely effective, but also is a leads
Speaker 1: to this kind of idea that like these are contracts
Speaker 1: when they're like not really. And I think that like
Speaker 1: the question of like how do blockchains and cryptocurrency let
Speaker 1: us organize, you know, how the impact the way that
Speaker 1: we organize aren't isn't going to be like a necessarily
Speaker 1: a contract law reality as much as it's going to
Speaker 1: be something like in terms of you know, the new
Speaker 1: spaces and the new intersections of different cultures and and
Speaker 1: and economies and and stuff that that are going to
Speaker 1: be facilitated in these spaces. But but the question of what,
Speaker 1: like how will blockchains effect and influence like the way
Speaker 1: we organize the society are you know, deep and uncertain,
Speaker 1: and there is an extent to which like the technology
Speaker 1: really is you know, better than traditional consistuts protocols, and
Speaker 1: so like there is a way where like, okay, we
Speaker 1: know it will help us in some computer systems in
Speaker 1: like a rather clear way. But in terms of like
Speaker 1: like you know, the promise of like social revolution or
Speaker 1: like a social change in the order, or like a
Speaker 1: social like you know, like new way like escape or
Speaker 1: things like this, like those are all like deep leading
Speaker 1: out of termistic and like very unclear. Like it could
Speaker 1: just be that like you know, this inspires like the
Speaker 1: worst kind of global totalitarianism in like a crackdown, as
Speaker 1: much as it could be that like you know, we're
Speaker 1: able to use it responsibly in a way where we
Speaker 1: can you know, justify the maintenance of our freedoms in
Speaker 1: the law. How could this go bad? I mean we
Speaker 1: were talking earlier before the show, and you you talk
Speaker 1: about this sort of like the danger of unstoppable software.
Speaker 1: What are some of the risks if people don't think
Speaker 1: about this right or if a sort of like if
Speaker 1: a community can't sufficiently self govern if there does, if
Speaker 1: if people fail to achieve some sort of like norms
Speaker 1: about say cutting off some of the most egregious Uh,
Speaker 1: patterns of behavior that can be done on a blockchain,
Speaker 1: Like what are some of the risks that people should
Speaker 1: be thinking about. I don't necessarily want to give people ideas,
Speaker 1: but I will say that, like whatever you have anything
Speaker 1: in the law that isn't subject dispute, you could like
Speaker 1: imagine it being part of like some Rube Goldberg machine
Speaker 1: that like does some kind of like you know, very
Speaker 1: unlawful thing in the end. So so so you can
Speaker 1: you can imagine that, like you know, each of these
Speaker 1: indisputable components can together come together to make things possible,
Speaker 1: like you know, the sharp increase in ransomware, and like
Speaker 1: you know, for for one example, that's like kind of
Speaker 1: like everyone knows about and it won't give anyone ideas
Speaker 1: for me to talk about, Like like ransomware is a
Speaker 1: good is a good example of something where you know
Speaker 1: it's it just makes the business of ransom so much
Speaker 1: easier to use cryptocurrency. And and so you know that
Speaker 1: is like some like quite obvious you know, unlawful bad
Speaker 1: some of different levels conduct that is basically being facilitated here.
Speaker 1: And then we currently don't have the means to really
Speaker 1: stop or let me rephrase, we don't have the will
Speaker 1: or the legal strategy like legal capacity to stop. Is
Speaker 1: that something in your view that the cryptocurrency or say
Speaker 1: people within say the Ethereum network, or I guess you
Speaker 1: know some of these are different networks, Bitcoin, narrow, et cetera.
Speaker 1: These things that people who are working on governance in
Speaker 1: these areas should be more actively thinking about. Absolutely, uh,
Speaker 1: and I think you know, um people need to be
Speaker 1: much more secure in their ability to handle conflicts in
Speaker 1: cryptome Um today. They're you know, they have these kind
Speaker 1: of like aggressive postures because like they don't believe that
Speaker 1: they can handle these disputes. They think that if you
Speaker 1: like delete some coins from some ransomware attack, then like
Speaker 1: that opens the floodgates to like the government deleting your
Speaker 1: coins because you didn't pay taxes or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: you can imagine people have like fears about all the
Speaker 1: things that could happen if we started to do anything,
Speaker 1: and and and and people like don't have like the
Speaker 1: security to like say, look, you know, we can judge
Speaker 1: these things, and we don't need to say, look, we
Speaker 1: don't need to delegate to like a system that decides
Speaker 1: and therefore we captured by the system, like we can
Speaker 1: have like the legal security and like the responsibility for
Speaker 1: legal judgments in order to you know, have our cake,
Speaker 1: and needed to to like not out un checked state authority,
Speaker 1: but also to not allow unchecked scammers. Since you brought
Speaker 1: up scamming and ransomware, I'm wondering if we can just
Speaker 1: go back to that question from earlier about use cases
Speaker 1: for blockchain, Yeah, because I like what gets you excited
Speaker 1: about potential use cases for the tech? I'm I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about you know, are this like opportunity that we
Speaker 1: have to both both because of the improvement in the technology,
Speaker 1: but also because of this crazy legal trick and this
Speaker 1: crazy legal reality that like crypto exist. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that's like most exciting to me
Speaker 1: is like this multidisciplinary mix of like this crazy kind
Speaker 1: of institution which like you know, sometimes passes itself off
Speaker 1: as tech, but it's really of a very interesting, dynamic, multifaceted,
Speaker 1: like ontologically very complex type of institution. And I think
Speaker 1: that like, you know, these although primitive today, stand to
Speaker 1: become like complex, dynamic, very interesting institutions that get to
Speaker 1: do a lot for us that like currently we don't
Speaker 1: have in cyberspace. Because like in cyberspace today, we have
Speaker 1: basically a situation where we have a kind of a
Speaker 1: neo feudalism where like our feudal lords who like own
Speaker 1: the big computers like own us. And I'm like not
Speaker 1: exaggerating by a lot, And so I think there's like
Speaker 1: a state of crisis in cyberspace that crypto helps to
Speaker 1: respond to, you know, as much as also there's like
Speaker 1: a state of crisis in like global governance and global
Speaker 1: law and like blockchain crypto kind of like sits in
Speaker 1: that space and can help us provide new realities, new paradigms,
Speaker 1: new places where we can try again and like hopefully
Speaker 1: not fail this time to have like you know, good
Speaker 1: governance and to have like you know, institutions that are
Speaker 1: part of a kind of society that we want to
Speaker 1: live in. So I think I think it's like you know,
Speaker 1: very much like very much political, and very much in
Speaker 1: reaction to some of the prevailing political reality. Today. We're
Speaker 1: basically like you know, power is concentrated and in a
Speaker 1: way where perhaps um with this decentralized computer or you
Speaker 1: know kind of like you know, like the servers that
Speaker 1: are like you know, I'm no longer owned the cyberspace, Um,
Speaker 1: we can maybe create and have a new balance of powers,
Speaker 1: like like like more balance of powers, you know, more
Speaker 1: rule of law as opposed to just you know, having
Speaker 1: like the feudal lords or like the legislatures or the
Speaker 1: states kind of like act lawless and and like lord
Speaker 1: over everyone as if like you know, they own the law.
Speaker 1: Do you envision in like a future theoretically in which
Speaker 1: sort of like everything that we do online, whether it's
Speaker 1: something that resembles traditional social networking sharing sharing stories and
Speaker 1: videos and photos of our friends communication, that it could
Speaker 1: all essentially be done in this sort of like new
Speaker 1: decentralized sort of like crypto based manner. Like is that
Speaker 1: like a future that seems realistic too? Um, Well, there's
Speaker 1: a number of like technical like legal, economic, you know,
Speaker 1: there's lots of lots of barriers, and there's like a
Speaker 1: you know, just because we have like new primitive forms
Speaker 1: in this direction and like way more possibilities and before,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that like we're there are yet. I mean,
Speaker 1: like privacy in cryptocurrency is very bad, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of basic norms around how we have disputes that
Speaker 1: aren't really settled in a way that's like secure or sustainable.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons why you know, we can't
Speaker 1: and we wouldn't, and they would be like a very
Speaker 1: bad idea for us to try to like do everything
Speaker 1: with cryptosystems. That said, you know, it's not clear what
Speaker 1: the technical, legal, economic, etcetera. Limits are, and so that's
Speaker 1: something that's like kind of also subject to ongoing kind
Speaker 1: of discovery, negotiation and so on. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: how that would look safe. It's easier to imagine why
Speaker 1: people would do it despite it not being safe. And
Speaker 1: so like I'm you know, concerned because like you know,
Speaker 1: of the like lack of basic infrastructure that's like required
Speaker 1: for this to be safe. However, the opportunities there, the
Speaker 1: stakes are, they're like the contention is there, like people
Speaker 1: are ready to fight over these issues and and and
Speaker 1: and and kind of see what happens. Although you know,
Speaker 1: we are still in a position where we could easily
Speaker 1: see some really bad outcomes when like for example, you know,
Speaker 1: like the unsoppable software, the like global cyber state, or
Speaker 1: like the uh, you know, the feudalists just controlling everything.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of bad outcomes that are kind
Speaker 1: of in the cake today that like could easily get
Speaker 1: baked you know, into like our reality, but it's not
Speaker 1: it's still like not said in stone yet, it's not
Speaker 1: clear like you know, these these outcomes will happen, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic that we can find better outcomes than than
Speaker 1: any of these kind of like established ones. I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to the beginning of this discussion, when
Speaker 1: we were talking about what attracted you into bitcoin in
Speaker 1: the first place, and then how you got interested in
Speaker 1: the theory um um. And it's a slightly weird I guess,
Speaker 1: like cultural or values question, but some people would describe
Speaker 1: the bitcoin community today as being I guess toxic is
Speaker 1: one word, or like openly hostile to outsiders and hostile
Speaker 1: to alternate visions of crypto. And so I'm just wondering,
Speaker 1: as someone who sits on the opposite side of bitcoin now, um,
Speaker 1: and it's heavily involved in ethereum, like, how would you
Speaker 1: characterize the cultural differences between Bitcoin versus ethereum. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think, um, you know, Bitcoin has like a
Speaker 1: relatively defined culture, whereas like ethereums culture is still kind
Speaker 1: of like amorphous and people you know, have different like
Speaker 1: sustained different very different politics and views within ethereum. So
Speaker 1: ethereum kind of is like much more diverse and in
Speaker 1: some way less toxic than big coin because like the
Speaker 1: the like incentive to like get everyone out who doesn't
Speaker 1: toe the party line, like isn't really like there as
Speaker 1: much in ethereum. And so what happens is basically like
Speaker 1: ethereum is like supports much more diversity, you know, and
Speaker 1: an ethereum by by virtue of like being more amorphous,
Speaker 1: by about like being about kind of everything instead of
Speaker 1: just being about money, it kind of has um you know,
Speaker 1: support from much more efficients. And but that also means
Speaker 1: that like there are like struggles and factions and people
Speaker 1: like you know, like having fights over like what is
Speaker 1: ethereum in a way that doesn't really happen in bitcoin
Speaker 1: and bitcoin they're kind of just like you know, twenty
Speaker 1: one million, twenty one million bitcoins and if you don't agree,
Speaker 1: get out, and if you don't like one magna blocks
Speaker 1: like get out, and like you know, they have this
Speaker 1: kind of a toxicity, which which is which is kind
Speaker 1: of like um. I like to describe it as a
Speaker 1: channel authentication UH strategy where basically it makes it so
Speaker 1: that like you, if you don't, if you're not like
Speaker 1: one of them, like you can't really tolerate to be there.
Speaker 1: And so you can kind of just like bird virtue
Speaker 1: of being in those channels, like you're kind of authenticated,
Speaker 1: and it makes it a safe space for them, and
Speaker 1: I think it also it also helps them reinforce this immutability.
Speaker 1: And I'm like earlier Joe mentioned like, oh, it would
Speaker 1: be very hard to change bitcoin, and the reason is
Speaker 1: because like you have all these uh toxic bitcoiners who
Speaker 1: will basically like be horrible to you if you suggest
Speaker 1: that we don't need to do this immutability thing. And
Speaker 1: not that it's like hard to change the software, it's
Speaker 1: just like hard to get through the bitcoiners who like
Speaker 1: have this kind of like pseudo cult or like real
Speaker 1: cult or pseudo religion around around Bitcoin. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess the question is is, like we've all interacted with that,
Speaker 1: and we sort of know that phenomenon, But could it
Speaker 1: be that that's a good sort of like survival strategy,
Speaker 1: a good evolutionary strategy. It's like, obviously Ethereum seems to
Speaker 1: be more open to debate and governance questions seem to
Speaker 1: be more up in the air and so forth. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you're trying to like bootstrap a new
Speaker 1: money into existence in a way that bitcoin is trying
Speaker 1: to do, does it make sense perhaps to create this
Speaker 1: cult environment so that you go through so that even
Speaker 1: during the lean times, nobody is threatned. Nobody, nobody who's
Speaker 1: involved wants to pivot or no change. Like adversity comes
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, some people might be tempted to
Speaker 1: change the project, but you know, bitcoiners by shedding themselves
Speaker 1: essentially of people who would be even tempted to think
Speaker 1: about changing the software or changing the project, Like, does
Speaker 1: that create a certain amount of resilience that can survive
Speaker 1: attacks or periods where the price is low and so forth.
Speaker 1: Kind of, but it also lends itself to be coming
Speaker 1: like obsolete or like a relic or like a kind
Speaker 1: of quaint vintage item or something. You know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of no offense. I don't, I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it. I guess it's let
Speaker 1: me say, it's not the smartest strategy I think in
Speaker 1: the long run, because it's kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: a maximum commitment now, like committing to the position like
Speaker 1: never change it. Like it's kind of like it gives
Speaker 1: up on their ability to maneuver. Who knows what will
Speaker 1: happen in the future. And it's kind of like painting
Speaker 1: yourself in the corner. You may like that corner for now,
Speaker 1: but you might find that one day you have you
Speaker 1: have a need to move around. And and I don't
Speaker 1: think it's particularly tactical. I don't think it's particularly smart.
Speaker 1: And just from like also the point of view of
Speaker 1: like the political agenda of bitcoin, you know, which is
Speaker 1: also which also which does involve like, you know, having
Speaker 1: some measure of legitimacy ultimately and like good will from
Speaker 1: society which is undermined by this kind of like toxic
Speaker 1: hardline attitude. Yeah. I totally agree with that last point.
Speaker 1: And of course there's like there's also an irony there.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like being a technological luod Eye, but
Speaker 1: at the same time being extremely into this new technology
Speaker 1: that you think is revolutionary and is going to change
Speaker 1: the world. Um, although I guess it's not that new anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: But just on this note, there was one other thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you. Um. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that makes ethereum different is that it does change, um,
Speaker 1: it does respond to challenges. There's a really vibrant debate
Speaker 1: over which direction ethereum should go in UM. And there
Speaker 1: are different factions UM, but you could also describe them
Speaker 1: as communities, and they're all sort of talking to each
Speaker 1: other about the future or of ethereum or the vision
Speaker 1: for the future. I'm just wondering, when it comes to
Speaker 1: building consensus in the ethereum community, how helpful is it
Speaker 1: to have a sort of figurehead UM like Metallic uh
Speaker 1: to help that happen, because that that also seems to
Speaker 1: be like a key difference between the ethereum community and
Speaker 1: Bitcoin that either like sort of has a leader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a it's a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes um, you know, basically like sometimes people
Speaker 1: expect Metallic to make cause when like you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't like really necessarily want to. Sometimes, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really really really useful to have UM, you know, hotalic
Speaker 1: be kind of like a cediator of you know, the
Speaker 1: different political kind of current in ethereum. But basically it
Speaker 1: also it also can lead to a kind of a
Speaker 1: suspension of judgment where basically people think that like, oh,
Speaker 1: like you know, if the Italic approves of this, it
Speaker 1: must be great, you know, and so and so they're
Speaker 1: definitely like cuts both ways. But I would say also
Speaker 1: the Italic is kind of like much more you know,
Speaker 1: benevolent dictator for theorem to then the theorym like one
Speaker 1: point oh where like we still have kind of like
Speaker 1: the OLDEVS call and the E I P s and
Speaker 1: we have like this kind of process of you know,
Speaker 1: the core developers and and and and then in which
Speaker 1: is some way, you know, in some way very independent
Speaker 1: and has been for a very long time of Italics
Speaker 1: like influence on day to day basis. So it Italic
Speaker 1: is actually really more like a researcher and like a
Speaker 1: pioneer like future direction as opposed to like you know,
Speaker 1: providing like any basis or day to day dispute management.
Speaker 1: So to sum up, it's sort of like big picture
Speaker 1: of views. If I'm getting it, it feels like the
Speaker 1: message what you're trying to say is, you know, there
Speaker 1: really is this potential through crypto, through blockchains to create
Speaker 1: new regimes of governance that could in many ways be
Speaker 1: better than what exists now. And some of that may
Speaker 1: be financial, some of that may be political and so forth.
Speaker 1: But to get there, the community itself has to take
Speaker 1: governance more seriously, and that it can't be that if
Speaker 1: if if we're going to replace governance with blockchain governance,
Speaker 1: then the people who manage and sort of like contribute
Speaker 1: to these blockchains have to take the idea of law
Speaker 1: and have to take the idea of potential melieability and
Speaker 1: regulating and maybe cutting off bad behavior more seriously in
Speaker 1: order to get to this point where blockchain has become
Speaker 1: an important thing. I think, I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's more or less right. I have life by myself
Speaker 1: like having a slight reservation around the idea that law
Speaker 1: is an idea, but like, you know, other than that,
Speaker 1: I think like that's I think that's I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And I think though, you know, it's it's more like
Speaker 1: having a kind of an ecosystem where like you know,
Speaker 1: like the tech people are doing tech governance and you
Speaker 1: have like people with like a legal disciplinary skill doing
Speaker 1: these types of like more dealing with the legal questions
Speaker 1: as opposed to trying to have like a kind of
Speaker 1: passing off of this institution as just technology and so
Speaker 1: I think that the big the big thing really is
Speaker 1: going to be UM more diverse governance or like a
Speaker 1: more multidisciplinary approach as opposed to kind of like tech
Speaker 1: centric approach that we kind of have now and and
Speaker 1: and so and so it's not so much about like
Speaker 1: developers really being more realistic about law. I mean, developers
Speaker 1: don't want anything to do with law, Like they should
Speaker 1: be isolated from liability. They shouldn't be making these decisions.
Speaker 1: These decisions are crazy, like like for the developers to
Speaker 1: be making, you know, like it's not appropriate to put
Speaker 1: a software developer in this kind of legal position. And
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, there's a there's a there's
Speaker 1: a need for kind of reimagination of the nature of
Speaker 1: these institutions or for us to have the kinds of
Speaker 1: skills and capacity to deal with these governance and law
Speaker 1: issues that just don't exist in technical disciplinary retraining. That's
Speaker 1: a really well point. Well, Vlaud, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for UM coming on odd lots. It's great to hear with,
Speaker 1: great to speak with one of the original originals in
Speaker 1: the space, one of the big thinkers, and uh, that
Speaker 1: was a great conversation. I appreciate you joining us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my pleasure really really fun than thanks a lot, take
Speaker 1: care of luck. So I thought that was actually super fascinating.
Speaker 1: You know, Tracy, have you come across like people, uh
Speaker 1: like on Twitter who like something bad happens, there's something
Speaker 1: and they're like, bitcoin fixes this. Have you come across
Speaker 1: like that? No? Never, that's no never seen. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: like bitcoin I once wrote down I think I wrote
Speaker 1: down all the like things that bitcoin was supposed to
Speaker 1: fix um and it was a really long list. And
Speaker 1: I remember I think the last the last time I
Speaker 1: did this was like during the depths of the COVID crisis.
Speaker 1: Can remember some people were talking about blockchain like fixing
Speaker 1: the pandemic, which again seemed like a bit of a reach. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean like obviously would people say that a lot
Speaker 1: of times like okay, I think a lot of times
Speaker 1: they're joking or just you know aligned that people will say.
Speaker 1: But I think like Vlood like raises a really interesting point,
Speaker 1: which and you know, if you want to push a
Speaker 1: deeper or something, it's like, how can bitcoin fix this?
Speaker 1: If like people who are involved in bitcoin don't actually
Speaker 1: and I think this is his point, like don't actually
Speaker 1: seem interested in law or governance, and so like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this sort of like belief that like somehow bitcoin
Speaker 1: itself has these powers to like write ills or whatever.
Speaker 1: And yet it's not obvious to me that the people
Speaker 1: who are involved in bitcoin in any way, with whether
Speaker 1: it's developers or holders or anything at should you have
Speaker 1: any like interest in engaging on what it would take
Speaker 1: to fix x or y totally. Well, this is why
Speaker 1: I brought up the toxicity point, which is like, if
Speaker 1: you have a community that like kind of describes itself
Speaker 1: as we are changing the world, but then won't actually
Speaker 1: talk very much about ideas of how it's changing the world, um,
Speaker 1: that seems problematic to me. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: is like almost by definition, bitcoin tends to be an
Speaker 1: exclusionary community. Um, there's a finite supply of coins um
Speaker 1: that will ever be in existence. And it's sort of
Speaker 1: like you know, first come, first serve. If you're an
Speaker 1: early adopter, you're kind of worshiped on the platform. And again,
Speaker 1: like if you're trying to recruit people to the cause,
Speaker 1: it seems like a weird stance to take. Like to me,
Speaker 1: I think you would want to be much more open
Speaker 1: and much more engaged and willing at least to talk
Speaker 1: about potential issues either with cryptocurrency itself or the underlying technology, right,
Speaker 1: and like okay, like bitcoin isn't going to fix everything,
Speaker 1: but even if you want to say like bitcoin to
Speaker 1: like be more of like a core financial infrastructure as
Speaker 1: opposed to say gold. Right, So it's like obviously, like
Speaker 1: I don't think like ethereum is the same mutable sort
Speaker 1: of like difficult to change properties as Bitcoin, but you
Speaker 1: could see like people within that community they're clearly going
Speaker 1: for it, Like they're clearly making an effort to plug
Speaker 1: themselves into the financial system. Stable coins that run on ethereum.
Speaker 1: You know, you get bonds, various synthetic equities that run
Speaker 1: somehow are built on top of ethereum, and so they're
Speaker 1: at least like so you know, you could say like
Speaker 1: that community is at least like trying, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: you could see this sort of like yeah, the bitcoin
Speaker 1: communities like fantasy about like everything is going to run
Speaker 1: on a bitcoin standard, but it's not exactly obvious to me.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, well, how are you going to get there?
Speaker 1: Like what do you wait? Like what what is the plan?
Speaker 1: And then the actual like plan of like, well, let's
Speaker 1: make this happen then seems to run into the contradiction
Speaker 1: of to make anything happen would require like governance and
Speaker 1: effort totally and like engagement and a minimum, which I
Speaker 1: certainly don't see happening like I see bitcoin like bitcoiner
Speaker 1: is sort of hiving themselves off in a corner of
Speaker 1: the Internet and talking amongst themselves for the most part um,
Speaker 1: which again like is unfortunate in many ways and probably
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why Ethereum seems to be um
Speaker 1: making more in roads into traditional corners of finance. But
Speaker 1: then again, like there is that open question of whether
Speaker 1: or not cryptos should be doing that in the first place,
Speaker 1: given the original vision of you know, sort of being
Speaker 1: this anti authoritarian, anti establishment technology. Yeah, but I guess
Speaker 1: like just like big picture, like I think like Blood's
Speaker 1: message is like super interesting, which is like if you
Speaker 1: are like aiming to create power, And I thought it
Speaker 1: was like his description of just the Internet like setting
Speaker 1: aside like state power, this sort of like feudal internet
Speaker 1: that we've built, which is true where it's like almost
Speaker 1: everything you do you sort of like pay a Facebook
Speaker 1: tex or an Amazon tax or there's just a handful
Speaker 1: of like extremely powerful entities. And so it's like if
Speaker 1: you like have like a vision of replacing that power,
Speaker 1: then you sort of like have to like you know,
Speaker 1: think about law experts. And you can't just have like,
Speaker 1: you know, software developers have it be all on them
Speaker 1: to like think about society and think about law, both
Speaker 1: like sort of literal written law and sort of like
Speaker 1: common law, etcetera. And so like the sort of like
Speaker 1: call to like take this stuff seriously, it's a it
Speaker 1: was like super interesting and important. Yeah. Absolutely. Also his um,
Speaker 1: the idea of sort of creating an independent, separate space
Speaker 1: that you can use to create new agreements or try
Speaker 1: to like come to a new consensus like that to
Speaker 1: me sounds intriguing, um, although I still have questions about it,
Speaker 1: but like also very very different to um the bitcoin vision. Yeah. Absolutely, Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: shall we leave it there. Let's leave it there, all right.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe wi Isn'tal. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guest on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Vlad zam Fair. He's at flad Zamfair. Follow our producer
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. Followed the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: head of podcast, Francesca Levy at Francesca Today. And check
Speaker 1: out all of our podcast at Bloomberg under the handle
Speaker 1: at podcasts. Thanks for listening to