BOX054: Banks don’t want to end banks

I was looking for something the other day and realised that his blog is actually unsearchable. I managed to design out the ability to actually find anything which was part of the reason for moving here from Blogger in the first place. I also really didn’t know whether to publish or not today. Looking at my calendar I’m not sure I’ll have time put anything together for next week. and this all feels… bitty. Anyway, I guess I’ll find out at the bottom.

You have to ask why people who constantly refer to the money they’re making would be so invested in building a system where they would have no control (and by extension ability to make lots of money). I hate to break it to you, but big banks aren’t investing in crypto because they want to see the end of big banks. The same sort of goes for the art world. I know I’m retreading an old thread I’ve been banging on for a year but NFT hype people are constantly talking about how it challenges the art market by democratising it but:

The hype around Web3 is entirely measured and reasonable, right?…In other news, there’s a group churning out NFTs attached to cartoon apes that aims to be a “Web3 streetwear band.” One of those cartoon apes recently sold for $3.4 million. So, to answer the question: No.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/web3-explained-crypto-nfts-bored-apes.html

Other than being enormously over-priced and out of reach of people not already up to their elbows in crypto slurry, these things aren’t even good art. It’s all GAN gimmicks, vaporwave and doodles. I’ve seen brilliant, interesting artists I respect deeply turn their entire careers to running National Portrait Gallery images through a GAN to make a quick buck. The mode of practice changes from good work that takes time to churning out at as much as possible as fast as possible because one in ten things might get snapped up or retweeted by the right person. It’s all driven by the algorithm. Nothing to do with content. Anyway, I didn’t make it to the Speculative Values event hosted by Rhizome last week because I was in my own somewhat rhizomatic, speculative world. I have the video to watch but Holo have already scraped this gem from Shumon Basar:

If you’re under 20 years old now, why wait 20 or 30 more years to make your hard earned future, if there’s no inhabitable future there anyway? Pump and dump becomes a rational survival technique: 100X or go home.

This feels like a near summary of this Mother Jones piece; Who Goes Crypto? about the economics. The articles suggests that this rudderless, hysterical hyper-capitalism is a natural side-effect of wage stagnation and income inequality:

If you want more money, a higher wage isn’t going to cut it. You also need to monetize your remaining waking hours outside of work. You need to keep earning money 24 hours a day. This shift has infected everything from the type of college people go to (one that is sure to have a high ROI), to the degree that they pick (a business one increasingly) in the hopes of getting the highest paying job possible. Hobbies are side hustles. Your time is an investment. Have you checked your 401(k)? Hustle is a way of life. Those with enough assets can afford to opt out. But a lot of us have become a tiny businesses, man.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto-eth-bitcoin-etc-financialization-gamestop-class-wealth/

There’s a particularly interesting bit about being in a metricised, performing generation and how that naturally follows into doing the same with your money. The part in there about mistrust of institutions needs some further digging. That whole idea is so nebulous.

Short Stuff.

May have accidentally used my short stuff in the main body there.

Aw, hell. I like the render. Let’s do it. Love you, speak later.