This week I had planned to write on the topic of doxing, or more specifically, about the question of “to dox or not to dox”, and the choice for, or against, web3 anonymity. As inspired as I initially felt to explore it, once I sat down to outline it the work began to feel like a grind. Then, as I often do these days when feeling stuck, I turned my attention to twitter for a daily download of crypto news and DAOist musings. Somewhere in my feed, from someone I had never heard of, there appeared the following,

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
That’s why every quarter, I evaluate myself and my friends on 3 key criteria:

• Income
• Fitness
• Influence

Anyone who scores below me is cut off.
Complacency is the first step towards mediocrity.”

A day later, though I don’t recall all the details of my reaction, I think it a safe bet it included some combination of a furrowed brow, my best gas face and nausea. All of that before I fired back with the first thing to come to mind as a counter blow.

“Congratulations on a life devoid of either giving or receiving unconditional love. You’re winning though. 👊”

Soon after that I turned off my computer and went out for the day. Honestly, I don’t think it occurred to me that I would even look at the tweet again. To the contrary, as someone new to twitter this year, I expected my response would go largely ignored, joining my 20-or-so other tweets in the land of twitter oblivion. To my surprise though, when I returned home several hours later, I noticed my twitter notification bell ringing, alerting me to the fact that my response had close to 200 likes. 20 hours later that number is now up to 488. Not that I’m counting.

I’m new to this twitter thing, and as far as likes are concerned, have only facebook likes to compare it to. 488 likes seems like a lot though. So while it may be small potatoes to seasoned tweeters with big followings, I’m a babe in the woods here, feeling pretty proud of that 488 thank you very much. Ooh, lookie there, just shot past 500. Am I going viral? LFG!!!

Seriously though, upon looking into the phenomena of my most-liked social media entry ever, I see the person I responded to has a lot of followers. 6,075 to be exact. And digging a little deeper I realize he likely intended his tweet as satire. Gas face rescinded. Perhaps the joke is on me for responding to it.

Satire or not, and irrespective of whether his friendship circles have anything to do with crypto and Web3, “@M’s” tweet points to something very concerning to me about Web3 culture and the playing field of web3 identity. Playas gonna play. So how will Web3 define winning?

Before we get into all that I sense some context would be helpful. A man in my early 50’s, I am at most a social media dabbler. I have a facebook page that I post on occasionally and to keep up with the lives of my 926 friends. I have created a few blogs over the years that I have enjoyed writing on but never broadcasted. Instagram? Oh good heavens no….except to check in on the lives of my college-age children. I regard the notion of creating a web identity as a near affront to my bias for real-life interaction with others and time outdoors. And other than a short list of physical ailments, I can think of few things I’d like less than thousands of followers.

So what am I doing here worrying and writing about Web3 culture? Fair question. What can I say except orange pills are a thing. Green pills too. I’ve fallen down a crypto rabbit hole and I can’t get up!

The truth is that while I wrestle with mixed emotions about getting involved, I am thankful for crypto’s role in opening my mind (🤯) and luring me beyond my comfort zone. For every horror story of greed, theft and exploitation related to this new frontier, I find most of what I read about the space to be inspiring. To quote the immortal words of Buffalo Springfield, “Somethings Happening Here”, 2020’s style, and most days I want to be a part of it.

One example of this is an article, “The Future of Work”, by David Hoffman. David makes a strong case for why Digital Organizations (DO’s), enabled by the blockchain and tokenized incentives, will present unprecedented opportunities for humans to coordinate both our hearts’ and minds’ shared interests to do purposeful work together. Among the many lines to strike a chord with me David writes,

“If you are a young person, looking for purpose, meaning, and eventually a salary, establishing yourself as a strong DOer is one of the best footholds you can establish for yourself….If you believe DOs are the future, you should start DOing now, so that you become the scarce resource for both DOs and people who need help DOing.”

Relative to the audience David likely had in mind I am not a “young person”. That said, aside from a rather curmudgeonly attitude toward social media, I pride myself at being young in spirit. I am beginning to “DO” (and DAO) and, in time, aspire to be among the scarce, valued resources of the space. So what game am I playing? And what was it about “@M’s” tweet that bothered me so?

Though it has been over 20 years since I worked as an analyst at an investment brokerage firm, that work, and my short time in the industry, taught me some valuable lessons. The most memorable of them is the difference between the “game” of judging companies’ worth on the basis of quarterly performance vs. that of valuing them (or not) on the basis of fundamental strengths relative to longer-term investment horizons. The former game is played to generate transactions that pay brokers and their firms. The latter is played to maximize investors’ returns.

Web3 playing fields, DOs and DAOs included, will create whole new worlds from which to relate to the earth, token projects, and one another. There will be more games to go around than anyone can count in the space’s many arenas. Short-term trading, of crypto and people, can be fun, even profitable. Patient investment, in the people and projects that mean the most to us, can change the world. Web3 only wins by changing the world.