“when i use a social media platform, i pay for that experience using my data. this data is valuable because it can be monetized by selling it to entities which want the data. when an influencer creates content, they are paid with attention. this attention is valuable because it can be monetized by redirecting it to entities which want the attention. see the parallels? in either case the thing being paid, data or attention, is not money but instead a thing that can be exchanged for money. that process of exchanging these things for money, which i called “monetization” in the examples above, creates enormous market inefficiency. for example, consider what is being paid when you use social media to build a following. on the one hand, you are paying with data but you are getting paid with attention. what’s the exchange rate for these things? to what extent does that rate change and under what conditions will it change? you probably have no idea; these aren’t even the complicated questions and we literally have no idea. people cannot make rational economic decisions when there is such ambiguity in the market.

…the stablecoin’s major failing is that it is not a bearer asset and therefore has counterparty risk. the stablecoin issuer is supposed to have real fiat for each stablecoin it issues. this may not always be the case. even a cbdc implemented as a bearer asset is only a bearer asset to the extent that the user is using it for “approved” transactions. a permissioned cbdc network can easily freeze accounts without any justifiable reason. in an increasingly politicized web, bad currencies like attention (they can just lock your account) and data (they can use your data to verify that what you are doing is authorized) and cbdc’s are all prone to censorship.

…if data and attention are no longer valid currencies, then the only thing that remains is to use one’s creativity and speech - one’s works - to earn the real currency. there is a cool philosophical parallel here. proof-of-stake, so favored by web3 vcs, will predictably imagine a rent-seeking “own” value proposition to project their preferences to the future internet. bitcoiners understand that ownership is meaningful only when there is true scarcity and proof of work.”