CRYPTOCURRENCY values rise and fall, but one number just keeps going up. Whenever somebody loses money to a crypto scam or hack, the Grift Counter on Molly White's blog, Web3 Is Going Just Great, ticks higher-it recently passed $67 billion.
White started the blog in December 2021 out of frustration with mainstream coverage of crypto, which she says paid too much attention to ragsto-riches tales and not enough to its dark underbelly. A software engineer, White coded Web3 Is Going Just Great as a side project to "entertain me and me alone," she says. But within a few months, it was a hit.
When White first learned about crypto at a conference in the early 2010s, she admired its pro-privacy and anti-censorship principles, and its potential to, say, shield dissidents and whistleblowers from financial surveillance or help women trapped in abusive relationships by financial dependence. By the time crypto reappeared on her radar a decade later, however, those ideals had been all but erased by an emphasis on profit. Online, so-called no coiners were being told to "have fun staying poor," as record numbers. of people were drawn to crypto. As a result, examples of the technology being used for good were eclipsed by examples of people losing money, White says. "It's moving the web and society in a really negative direction."
When White started Web3 Is Going Just Great, crypto was on a hot streak, and she says she found herself "raining on the parade of people who weren't willing to be rained on." Threats, slurs, and insults began to tumble into her inbox. As a longtime Wikipedia editor, White was accustomed to abuse. She had received threats of doxing and violence toward family members over entries she authored on the American far right. Nonetheless, it still "really sucks," she says. "That's why this type of behavior happens to discourage people from being critical. A lot of people decide it's not worth it."
In 2022, White and her fellow critics had their moment. That May, the failure of the terra luna stablecoin prompted a chain reaction that took down hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, cry...
White started the blog in December 2021 out of frustration with mainstream coverage of crypto, which she says paid too much attention to ragsto-riches tales and not enough to its dark underbelly. A software engineer, White coded Web3 Is Going Just Great as a side project to "entertain me and me alone," she says. But within a few months, it was a hit.
When White first learned about crypto at a conference in the early 2010s, she admired its pro-privacy and anti-censorship principles, and its potential to, say, shield dissidents and whistleblowers from financial surveillance or help women trapped in abusive relationships by financial dependence. By the time crypto reappeared on her radar a decade later, however, those ideals had been all but erased by an emphasis on profit. Online, so-called no coiners were being told to "have fun staying poor," as record numbers. of people were drawn to crypto. As a result, examples of the technology being used for good were eclipsed by examples of people losing money, White says. "It's moving the web and society in a really negative direction."
When White started Web3 Is Going Just Great, crypto was on a hot streak, and she says she found herself "raining on the parade of people who weren't willing to be rained on." Threats, slurs, and insults began to tumble into her inbox. As a longtime Wikipedia editor, White was accustomed to abuse. She had received threats of doxing and violence toward family members over entries she authored on the American far right. Nonetheless, it still "really sucks," she says. "That's why this type of behavior happens to discourage people from being critical. A lot of people decide it's not worth it."
In 2022, White and her fellow critics had their moment. That May, the failure of the terra luna stablecoin prompted a chain reaction that took down hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, cry...
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WIRED (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2023