Folding Ideas
12 HN recommenders · recommended in 11 months, 2022–2026
2:18:23 · 19M views · Jan 21, 2022
Dan Olson's roughly two-hour video essay critiques NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web3, covering their technical, economic, and ideological flaws. It is heavily sourced and ends with the advice to ask whether a project needs crypto to work.
It is the go-to long-form critique of crypto that HN commenters recommend whenever skeptics ask for a thorough, well-researched takedown.
20 comments from Hacker News
They pretty much nailed it in the last paragraph... > Writing in the New York Times Adrian Chen noted as far back as 2013 that Bitcoin is built on a weird mix of speculative greed bolstered by a utopian cyberlibertarian ideology and likened it to a digital gold rush. Indeed, hyperbole continues to characterise all aspects of the crypto world. Crypto messaging does not appear to be directed at the rational or sensible. Adrian Chen's article... [LINK] Dan Olson's now epic "Line Goes Up" this video ... a masterful takedown of crypotcurrency and NFT's, it also demonstrates what a shit-show this has all become. Much MUCH worse than in Chen's 2013 article.
Folding Ideas' new (2 hour podcast-ish) video "The Problem With NFTs" is a really good critique of cryptocurrency: this video Covers pretty much every thought I've ever had regarding centralization, privacy issues, proof of work and proof of stake both rewarding the rich, economic incentives in speculative markets, NFT hucksterism — but with detailed research and examples of each. Some of the NFT security stuff is jaw-droppingly bad.
Not my favorite video from Dan Olson but still enjoyable. I highly recommend his video about NFTs, Line Goes Up: this video So much time, energy, and resources wasted on this stuff when we have such bigger issues to solve as a collective.
On this note. This recent video is probably the most detailed and incisive critique of cryptocurrency and NFTs that I've seen: this video It not only covers the technical limitations, but also the ideological flaws.
I've watched the video as well and wholeheartedly agree! His 'Line Goes Up' documentary about crypto is also exceptional; very critical but in educated and actually nuanced ways ( this video ).