Crypto-sceptic Molly White could be the new JK Galbraith just much tougher | John Naughton

MeIn 1955, economist John Kenneth Galbraith said: Crash 1929, The history of the Wall Street Crash. In it, he recorded in his customary caustic wit the rampant speculation that led to the catastrophe and, in one important respect, its striking resemblance to all speculative bubbles. : A loving belief that speculators can get rich without doing anything. The book has undergone many editions and reprints, for which Galbraith wrote a new preface. When his Harvard colleague asked him why he continued this, his answer was that knowing what happened in 1929 would be the best preventive measure against a recurrence. It was a thing.

Believing this, Galbraith was characteristically naive, as even a rough inspection of recent history confirms. For example, consider the first Internet boom of 1995-2000. In this boom, there are dot-com startups that own a website but have temporarily not earned a reputation that surpasses General Motors in terms of revenue and customers. Or the Irish “Celtic tigerThe moment of the accompanying real estate boom promoted by the government, which acted as the political sector of the construction industry, between the mid-1990s and 2008. And to keep the story of human greed and stupidity up to date Cryptocurrency frenzyThe blockchain where we are intertwined with “Web3”.

In such speculative madness, it takes courage to point out that bubbles always burst. People can be very annoyed when someone suggests that the nonsense of investing their hopes and savings is meaningless.For example, in 2006, an economist Professor Morgan Kelly predict Ireland real estate prices will plummet Up to 50% he was furious with the then prime minister. “Sit on the sidelines,” said Bertie Ahern. “Cribs and moans are a lost opportunity. Frankly, the only thing that motivates me is that I can actively change something, so I don’t know how people engaged in it don’t commit suicide. Hmm. “(Ahan later apologized for mentioning suicide.)

All of this is why we celebrate Molly White, a notable young woman who is the most honest critic of cryptocurrency frenzy. She is a software developer during the day, a full-time editor of Wikipedia, has been involved since the age of 13, and now has over 100,000 edits. In her spare time, she became the sharpest critic of crypto boosterism on the web. Her websiteThe very ironic title “Web3 IsGoing Just Great” is a popular example of cryptocurrency fraud, such as investment fraud, incompetent execution of projects that collapse due to mismanagement, and hacking that wastes supporters’ money.

at first, She talked to the interviewer, She was quite far from madness. If nerds wanted to tinker with cryptography, that was their job. What surprised her was when she discovered that the general public was beginning to invest in cryptocurrency schemes. “It was about to happen,” she said. So I decided to start highlighting each project I saw. It was either a terrible idea at first or something that set it up, and persuaded many to pour money into it. that. And they did it all. “

In a sense, her site says she “Rag pull“. “Someone creates a new project. It could be a new cryptocurrency token, it could be an NFT project. And they make a lot of people invest money. And they suddenly , So-called liquidity pools. And that means that the value of coins or NFTs suddenly goes to zero when buyers expect them to be able to trade. “In other words, they used to be pumps. It was called an and dump fraud.

But in addition to publishing like these, there are many other useful things on White’s site. A glossary useful for beginners in this esoteric subject area. She called her “Blockchain collection“; A wonderful lecture on the theme of” abuse on the blockchain “she gave a student at Stanford University.When An amazing collective critique she curated from Kevin Ruth’s article, The Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto.In New York Times..

As expected, this carefully marshalled and useful information virtual cabinet didn’t love White to the more enthusiastic wings of the crypto cult. Since she published her photo online in 2011, she has been the target of harassment and violence from internet trolls, especially after the following incendiary bombs on Wikipedia.Insel“. When the price of freedom in the real world is vigilant, the price of truthful announcements on the Internet is harassment and even worse. This was something John Kenneth Galbraith didn’t have to worry about.

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