Crypto Crash Part I: The Case Against Crypto

Today, we have the first in a two-part series on lessons from the crypto crash.

Crypto, also known as Web3, also known as blockchain-based technologies, remains the weirdest space I’ve ever reported on. I’ve never learned so much about a topic where there were people I trusted roughly equally, whose intelligence I trusted roughly equally, coming to completely opposite opinions. People I consider brilliant think this is the wave of the future. Others are fairly positive that the bulk of this world is a giant Ponzi scheme that’s even worse than most people realize.Today's guest is Molly Wood, a financial journalist turned venture capitalist who also hosts the podcast 'This Week in Startups.' I would summarize Molly’s case against crypto in three main points:

1. It is a double-enemy of the environment—an energy-intensive speculation that pulls money and talent from climate technology.
2. It is an unregulated bonanza of investor shenanigans—Molly explains why the very structure of crypto tokens invites a kind of Ponzi-scheming dynamic, which deserves our attention.
3. Even if you have nice things to say about crypto—and we do have nice things to say about it—there’s a strong case to be made that the promises and the grandiosity is wildly out of line with the actual use cases.

The timing on this episode feels right. Last week, several employees of the crypto trading exchange Coinbase were charged with wire fraud, the first insider-trading case involving cryptocurrencies. This is our little podcast trial of crypto. Today, the prosecution. Tomorrow, the defense.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Molly Wood

Producer: Devon Manze

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