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solarpunk Solarpunk @slrpnk.net
AEMarling @slrpnk.net

Reminder: crypto isn’t solarpunk. It’s cyberpunk.

Listening to a recent episode of the Solarpunk Presents podcast reminded me the importance of consistently calling out cryptocurrency as a wasteful scam. The podcast hosts fail to do that, and because bad actors will continue to try to push crypto, we must condemn it with equal persistence.

Solarpunks must be skeptical of anyone saying it’s important to buy something, like a Tesla, or buy in, with cryptocurrency. Capitalists want nothing more than to co-opt radical movements, neutralizing them, to sell products.

People shilling crypto will tell you it decentralizes power. So that’s a lie, but solarpunks who believe it may be fooled into investing in this Ponzi scheme that burns more energy than some countries. Crypto will centralize power in billionaires, increasing their wealth and decreasing their accountability. That’s why Space Karen Elon Musk pushes crypto. The freer the market, the faster it devolves to monopoly. Rather than decentralizing anything, crypto would steer us toward a Bladerunner dystopia with its all-powerful Tyrell corporation.

Promoting crypto on a solarpunk podcast would be unforgivable. That’s not quite what happens on S5E1 “Let’s Talk Tech.” The hosts seem to understand crypto has no part in a solarpunk future or its prefigurative present. But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality. At best, I would call this disingenuous. And it reeks of the both-sides-ism that corporate media used to paralyze climate action discourse for decades.

Crypto is not “appropriate tech,” and discussing it without any clarity is inappropriate.

Update for episode 5.3: In a case of hyper hypocrisy, they caution against accepting superficial solutions---things that appear utopian but really reinforce inequality and accelerate the climate crisis---while doing exactly that by talking up cryptocurrency.

286 comments

  • Thanks for emphasizing this. I was a bit disappointed in that episode. I don't remember any mention of decentralization which is integral to solarpunk. One of the hosts seemed to just respond to the other with a lot of whataboutism and negativity that just revealed a lack of understanding of solarpunk's relationship to technology. For example, promoting electric cars instead of public transportation and reducing the amount of cars on the rode. Maybe that was the both-sides-ism to create discussion but it seemed like a missed opportunity to really dive into solarpunk technology. Maybe someone from this community could reach out about our approach to technology. They seem like they'd be open to hearing different viewpoints from the solarpunk community.

  • I'm an anarcho-communist, so the future I would like has no money in it, virtual or otherwise, but we aren't there yet, and as long as we live under capitalism, I see no issue with making use of tools there to create parallel systems to those of the existing institution, to not only undermine them, but create a secondary system independent of the state to rely on (aka dual power).

    It should be expected that capitalists would co-opt these tools, but that doesn't make our use of them less valid (or theirs desirable).

    Them turning it in to an investment doesn't mean you do - if you're not buying (or mining) it to accumulate it, all it is is a token that allows you (if done correctly) to move money privately and securely, without capitalists knowing who is involved nor taking a cut or involving the authorities. I'm sure you can think for yourself of reasons why this would be beneficial for anarchists and other radical and revolutionary groups and individuals around the world, and the networks they create.

    I don't know the podcast you've mentioned, but I agree that marketing crypto for profit definitely isn't punk in any way shape or form, but it's the marketing for profit part you should be taking issue with, not the tool they happen to be using to make the profit with (AI being a perfect example of another tool that can be used to either free or enslave us, dependent on who is in control, not on the tool itself).

    Edit just to be clear: crypto is a big vague term that covers all manor of sins, I'm not an advocate for all or even most of it, but again - used correctly, it can be a really useful tool to have at our disposal.

    • “… it’s not secure, it’s not safe, it’s not reliable, it’s not trustworthy, it’s not even decentralized, it’s not anonymous, it’s helping destroy the planet. I haven’t found one positive use. For blockchain, it was nothing that couldn’t be done better without it.”

      —Bruce Schneier, Bruce Schneier on the Crypto/Blockchain Disaster

      • Bruce Schneier, dubbed the “security guru” by The Economist, has been decrying the value of blockchain and all its offshoots for more than a decade.

        lol

        I don’t know. I mean, the fact that if you forget your password, you can lose your life savings and you can’t go to any court is not a benefit to it. That’s the reason why governments issue currencies (and) why wildcat banks have been illegal for 107 years

        Guys never heard of backup seedphrases?

        It is not just because governments are mean and want to control. It’s because it’s really good reasons. What? You don’t want individuals minting money. You can’t just toss away all those centuries of banking regulation that really know what you’re doing.

        Yeah, kk.

        CPM—What about smart contracts?

        Schneier—The contract where you make a typo when you lose your life savings? Yeah, I hate that. That seems dumb.

        CPM—I’ve wondered about it because a smart contract is, number one is legal terminology. So you can get a lawyer that can help you with the terminology.

        Schneier—And if he makes a mistake, there’s no recourse.

        Oh no typos will ruin your life. Pretty sure if your lawyer makes a mistake without any block chain or crypto it can still ruin your life.

        This dude sounds like a mouthpiece for the banks and offers no good arguments against cryptocurrency beyond his apparent disdain for blockchain

    • Them turning it in to an investment doesn’t mean you do - if you’re not buying (or mining) it to accumulate it, all it is is a token that allows you (if done correctly) to move money privately and securely, without capitalists knowing who is involved nor taking a cut or involving the authorities.

      By participating in the market you provide liquidity to it, and that's the most important thing the ponzi scheme needs as it perpetuates the illusion of others that their coins are actually worth something. Sure, there are rare situations where someone would have a use for crypto, like fleeing an authoritarian state or so, but in the end any kind of interaction with these systems is like frequenting a business where you know it is used as a front for money-laundering by criminal enterprises.

      • but in the end any kind of interaction with these systems is like frequenting a business where you know it is used as a front for money-laundering by criminal enterprises.

        So most large corporations and banks then..

        Look, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, I made it very clear I don't support holding on to any crypto, just using it to circumvent oppressive systems, focusing on rejecting a tool (and one that can be specifically extremely useful in enabling revolutionary movements) because you don't like how others use it, instead of a system where any and all consumptions involves multiple levels of unethical practices, seems like completely missing the point to me. ¯(ツ)/¯

    • A sane perspective.. ..I wasn't really expecting that here.

    • “But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality.”

    • “… nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” —Isaac Asimov

  • On their Patreon, the “Solarpunk Presents” hosts admitted they interviewed crypto-and-web3 bro Stephen Reid because listeners asked for him. The hosts should have known better. They should have ignored those requests, as probably those listeners/Patreon donors are invested in crypto and are trying to shoehorn it into the conversation. The hosts should have known crypto is unnecessary for a solarpunk present or future. Instead we could be talking about real solutions like mutual aid, free stores, and library economies. The hosts failed to do the right thing.

    Barring that, they should have refunded the money of Patreon donors asking for this speaker, saying that ethically they cannot platform crypto. The hosts failed to do the right thing.

    They should have challenged Stephen Reid when he made fallacious arguments in favor of crypto. The hosts failed to do the right thing. After recording, the hosts should have realized their conversation wasn’t substantive and valuable. They could have refrained from uploading it or edited out the unopposed statements in favor of crypto. The hosts failed to do the right thing.

    At the least they should have interjected context about those arguments, adding counterpoints and why crypto may not be the only solution or not a solution at all to any of solarpunk’s goals. The hosts failed to do the right thing.

    They should have added a prelude or epilogue to the episode talking about any reservations about crypto or how the general conversation did not represent their solarpunk values. The hosts failed to do the right thing.

    I have no confidence they will do the right thing in the future.

  • I own Bitcoin and solar panels. The two technologies don't have to be enemies.

  • Ok here's the thing, crypto as a concept it's not a completely bad idea the main problem is that the entire ecosystem was kidnapped by scammers and vcs, most of projects are scams at this point and it's extremely difficult to even talk about the concept without talking about bitcoin, which is the worst offender. But there are small projects like nano that tried to bring back the original concepts after fixing the principal flaws like mining and by extension the transaction fees, of course as you might guessed this project isn't popular among crypto bros because there's no profit to be made from the currency itself. I think all of this is still in it's infancy and has potential to develop in a positive way, what it needs is to remove the idea of easy money and systems that prevent users from earning from trading, in other words remove capitalists from the equation

    • I'm sorry but I have to disagree on this one.

      Core to the design of the public-ledger blockchain system that powers all crypto is the idea that you have to have a proof-of-work mechanism. That's actually the big innovation that Satoshi Nakamoto brought to the table. Blockchain systems have been around forever, but blockchain in the crypto context came about because of the idea of proof-of-work. Before that you didn't have a way of securing the public-ledger against bad actors.

      Proof-of-work is a system that gives control to whoever will put in the most "work", and work in this case is measured in computing power. That means that, by design, the system has to produce endless and unfathomable amounts of e-waste. It's a system that rewards infinite growth and exploitation; to be the dominant power in the crypto ecosystem you have to be constantly expanding the amount of compute power at your disposal. That means endless resource extraction, for one thing. This is as fundamentally un-solarpunk as you can get. It's also why a reward scheme is built in; there have to be incentives for providing that compute power, and payments to balance out its cost.

      (By the way, all of the alternative schemes, like proof-of-storage or proof-of-stake, either have the same problem of endless resource costs, or just hand even more power to those with the most resources)

      But if you take away the reward structure, all you've done is change the incentives, not remove them, because there's still the reward of being able to control the system as a whole. If you own the bulk of the processing power, you get to decide what the authoritative version of the chain is. You can decide to change the rules of how transactions are processed, or just roll-back transactions entirely. Without a monetary reward, you've now simply handed that control to the people who already have the wealth required to simply throw at it for the sake of the control itself. Your public-ledger blockchain is now owned by Jeff Bezos. You could have a state step in and use its combined resources to prevent this from happening, but then why run it as a public-ledger system at all? It's already publicly owned if it's being done by the state, so just have a central bank with an authoritative database system that wastes far less energy and far fewer material resources.

286 comments