Stickiness of the human mind
Desperation or luck can lead to similar feelings of attachment to an idea - former, I knew of due to my formative years growing up in 3rd world; latter, I feel I have only understood over past few weeks. Admittedly, I grew up in rich family so its not a personal experience; but saw first-hand how ordinary folks went through life to feed their families to the extent that court judges had to be secretly bought off to ensure land mafia would not take over the area where poor families lived.
Recently, I went through a life experience that opened my eyes to my current position in life, which, in one weird way builds upon my thoughts of previous note. Gist of it is that I had to list out assets I hold so that my partner is able to cash them out if in an unforeseen event I am not around. Going through it and thinking through how I got here I realised how luck can make you feel sentimentally close to certain ideas.
Once we are attached to an idea; we always look for excuses to justify it. This usually leads us to a group think (since largely we prefer to listen to those who agree with us or promise to protect us). In order to stop myself from becoming a crypto-purist I have been mentally classifying any crypto wins as luck (although sometimes my notes sound too sure of themselves).
Nevertheless, as the current crypto cycle progresses I am questioning & agreeing more & more with critics - e.g. an anonymous treasurer (known as Sifu) of DeFi protocol Wonderland was doxed and we discovered he is co-founder of the defunct QuadrigaCX that lost $100m+
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
To make matters worse the lead of Wonderland who is running a number of other such projects knew about this. Plot twist: Wonderland was called out by Senator Warren in one of the congressional hearings on stable-coins months ago; so one wonders if Senator Warren had access to something that regulators have been sharing with her. Additionally, I for one wouldn't be surprised if there is an attempt to confiscate Sifu's $200m in DeFi assets.
On the other hand, the crypto community has never been stronger - e.g. Trezor (a hardware wallet provider) had to backtrack and remove Address Ownership Proof Protocol (OPP) after facing backlash from crypto enthusiasts & its customers. AOPP is a Swiss travel rule protocol that allows to verify ownership of withdrawal address.
SatoshiLabs
Nor there is a shortage of $ even with impending rate hikes. A "bridge" that allows folks to transfer assets between one blockchain to another; known as Wormhole got exploited for approx. $300m+. Within hours Jump Trading put up from their own pocket the assets required to make the protocol whole.
Yogita Khatri
This brings me to my last point; crypto Super PACs are coming and I really hope we take up the crypto discussions under the guide of Robert K Merton's CUDOS norms to allow to build a constructive future & limit our inherent biases; i.e.
- communism - aka open source our thoughts
- universalism - aka enforce uniform standards in discussions
- disinterestedness - aka be vigilant to personal agendas
- organised scepticism - aka encourage engagement and dissent to allow for better scrutiny
Sam Sutton
