Subscribe to Musashi
Receive new entries directly to your inbox.
Sartoshi is dead. Long live Sartoshi.
June 11th, 2022
Yesterday, Sartoshi -- the pseudonymous founder of mfers -- vanished into the ether. To most of the world this means nothing, of course. But for a small, yet disproportionately vocal community of very-online mfers, it was a startling event, inducing all manner of mixed-feelings.
May 23rd, 2022
‘Monetary localism’ -- a term conceived by Ethan Buchman -- is the idea that monetary value ought to be expressed at the local, community level, rather than exclusively at the national scale and beyond. While the view rests on a number of abstract arguments, the thrust of it is nevertheless a most intuitive idea. That is, given the plurality of human values, tastes and preferences, it stands to reason that there ought to be many abstract symbols of value -- “moneys” -- that intend to capture and convey this plurality. All things being equal, a world of many moneys is -- according to the localist -- a better than world than a world of but a few.
May 22nd, 2022
It’s not that I’m unaware that NFTs aren’t universally attractive, at the minute. Or that their application as “PFPs” is just as likely to signal pathology as any kind of virtue, let alone sex appeal. And it’s not that that I don’t give a f\*ck (I’m an mfer, sure, but I’m rarely a careless one). So why, then, in spite of all the bullshit that often seems to define crypto, is it that I nevertheless stand behind them? Why not join the many armies that oppose it all instead? They’re surely a more respectable bunch than the degens and shadowy supercoders and dodgy artists whom I’ve quietly come to adore so much. So why? Why, that is, am I such an mfer? If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you.
January 13th, 2022
Revolutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are worthy of the name and change the world forever, while others fizzle out and become mere footnotes in the great book of History. Where exactly “Web3” will land on this continuum is, as of this moment, still to be determined, and, as such, the subject of much debate. On one hand, we have the “believers” - the apostles, evangelists, and high priests - who claim that Web3 will be the internet’s (and thus humanity’s) saving grace. While there are many lofty ideas floating about their heads, such folk view the set of innovations - both social and technological - that Web3 represents - i.e. property rights, “decentralization”, programmable money, and community-driven products/platforms - as a kind of grand exorcism being performed, in real-time, on the sins of Web2 (of which, certainly, there are many). On the other hand are the skeptics, the nay-sayers, the “old-guard”, the Web2 sympathizers. Such critics, who come at the space with varying backgrounds and priors, push back on the religious fervour of Web3 evangelists; some even going so far as to dismiss the whole enterprise as entirely mistaken - less revolutionary than a ponzi scheme-fuelled collective hysteria, a fantasy borne of a most peculiar, blockchain-based Reality distortion field. So, which is it? The Second Coming, for real, or just a bunch of pollyannas gone mad?