Re: <nettime> NEW BOOK! Surfing with Satoshi

Jaromil wrote:

"Those who may keep investing in activist initiatives and commons-based
infrastructure are in other camps than NFT/web3/ethereum, a context
which after initial (2013) investments by goldmans and other global
banks have moved forward to play the game we see televised today, this
is the crypto finance overly present in trade shows and now even art
debates, cashing on the crypto on-boarding of get-rich-quick idiots
worldwide."

This sounds exactly right to me. However there is apparently quite a zone of ambiguity between the financialized side and the commons side, and it seems to have dragged in a lot of artists. I mean, I haven't read the new book being touted here, but you can see the ambiguity in the introduction (Is it X? or Y? they keep asking). They are keeping the ambiguity open when, as you report above, it's not ambiguous at all. This is obvious even from the outside btw.

I suspect the pump and dump is also obvious to many artists involved, they just want to get some cash out of it! Well, a lot of art does get supported by dodgy money, but the artists don't have to become apologists for that money. When someone again plays up NFTs on nettime, I just want to respond. The cash pipeline is dependent on maintaining the ambiguity, and what gets lost is a culture that can orient people in this crazy and dangerous world.

Besides, I'm gonna say it again. I really don't think we all invented tactical media to end up supporting "verifiable digital scarcity." The concept is bullshit, the art is bullshit, crypto finance is bullshit and that all should be said frankly. As you've just done. So I'm glad for the thread!

On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 1:37 AM Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org> wrote:

dear Brian,

On Mon, 09 May 2022, Brian Holmes wrote:

> "Why do the visual arts seem to have acquired such a central role in the
> crypto economy?"
>
> Could it be that impenetrable financial technology needs an artistic
> fetish to conquer even more territory? Thus digital art, after playing
> with direct democracy for a few decades, has now returned to the
> time-honored role of decorator for the elites.

Interesting take. I thought instead that the elites have shown some
money to digital artists convincing them to dance, perhaps I have a too
high consideration of "digital artists" whatever that means. :^)

> In case it's not obvious to everyone, "verifiable digital scarcity" is
> the exact opposite of what tactical media set out to do. Hopefully all
> the get-rich-quick NFT-minters are going to set up commons-based
> infrastructure with their haul, I can respect that and will support it
> when the pump and dump is over.

AFAIK they are not the same people.

Those who may keep investing in activist initiatives and commons-based
infrastructure are in other camps than NFT/web3/ethereum, a context
which after initial (2013) investments by goldmans and other global
banks have moved forward to play the game we see televised today, this
is the crypto finance overly present in trade shows and now even art
debates, cashing on the crypto on-boarding of get-rich-quick idiots
worldwide.

I believe the "crypto commons" movement right now has a clear
interpretation of how tactical is a pump-and-dump and will stay
underground and far from gigs pumped by the eth/web3 camp.
What I call the crypto-commons movement will be also attacked from all
mainstream sides, while the leftover cold-war assets jumping back on
their seats nowadays are tempted to say we are all sons of a Putain

IMHO the dump of eth is approaching as its prophet has decreted that
layer 2 (upcoming eth2 also called "The Merge") should bring down
transaction prices to $0.05.
https://www.forbesindia.com/article/crypto-made-easy/vitalik-buterin-says-transaction-fees-need-to-reduce-to-5-cents-to-remain-acceptable/75941/1
the next target for this sexy tech may well low-income financial areas

here my assessment five months ago
https://twitter.com/jaromil/status/1473946713681543173
as of 1st Jan 2022 the price for 1 year domain registration was at 640USD
a bit of math:
market value of eth: 4000
low cost of "web2" new domains: 10
cost of a "web3" .eth domain: 640
euclides: 640:4000=10:x
x=62.5 is the "use value" of eth against its market value.

p.s. for the curious techies who like to play with web3 no need to pay
money to these sociopaths we have a free-for-all testnet on
https://fabchain.net still in the process of getting stable so you may
see the faucet is down now then try later.

ciao