Are you tired of listening to cryptobros, venture capitalists, and extreme libertarians explain crypto to you? So are we. Below you can find in-depth conversations with politicians, scholars, journalists, and artists.
They tackle various facets of the crypto phenomenon without getting too technical or esoteric. We have deliberately steered away from technologists who have dominated this conversation so far; that's not because we don't think technology is unimportant – it's because we think they already have enough of a platform.
If you have people to suggest, please write to us at crypto@the-syllabus.com
JANUARY 2022
Yanis Varoufakis on Crypto & the Left, and Techno-Feudalism
Keywords: CBDCs, Bitcoin, El Salvador, NFTs, games, Techno-Feudalism
Adam Tooze on Macrofinance and “Fully Political Money”
Keywords: macrofinance, fiat money, monetary policy, Big Tech
Francesca Bria on Decentralisation, Sovereignty, and Web3
Keywords: D-CENT, Decode, Indymedia, Francesco Nachira, Gilberto Gil, decentralising institutions
Edemilson Paraná on Digitised Finance, Bitcoin, Brazil
Keywords: neoliberalism, financial opacity, politics of money, digital metalism, CBDCs
DECEMBER 2021
Katrin Becker on Lex Cryptographia
Keywords: law, industrial religion, cyber-management, imaginary, Kleros
Pete Howson on Cryptocarbon
Keywords: crypto-carbon, surveillance philanthropy, blockchain for degrowth, disaster capitalism, crypto-colonialism
Geraldine Juárez on NFTs and Ghosts
Keywords: NFTs, cryptoart, copyleft, Berlin, assetization, decentralisation
Izabella Kaminska on Synthesising Trust
Keywords: Web3, Bitcoin, El Salvador, CBDCs, sovereign individual, DeFi
Jorge E. Cuéllar on El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment
Keywords: Blockchain imperialism, El Salvador, Bitcoin, Nayib Bukele, fiduciary colonialism
Brian Eno on NFTs & Automatism
Keywords: NFTs, art, financialisation, Robin Hood-ism, Marcel Duchamp
Sanneke Kloppenburg on Climate Cryptogovernance
Keywords: Blockchain, measurementality, climate cryptogovernance, crypto mining, non-blockchain politics
Andrés Arauz on Crypto & the Global South
Keywords: Electronic money, CBDC, monetary sovereignty, payment systems, international hierarchy of money
Stefan Eich on Hayek & Money
Keywords: money, time, Keynes, Hayek, Bitcoin, stablecoins
Bram Büscher on Nature3
Keywords: conservation, neoliberalism, capitalism, ReFi
Olivier Jutel on Blockchain Imperialism
Keywords: imperialism, Pacific, development, solutionism