Today we'll explore why blockchain is at a critical crossroads and why the choices builders make today may determine whether it becomes a tool for the people or to further advance the interests of the few, how corporate and political capture is undermining crypto and the decentralization movement, and what we can do about it, the role blockchain can play in fighting disinformation, protecting elections, and rebuilding trust in an age of epistemic chaos, and some commitments every builder and community member can make to ensure blockchain serves democracy, community ownership, and human resilience. Welcome to CryptoAltras, where we explore the intersections of Web3 and social good to the stories of impact-driven builders and offer actual insights to empower your journey into the world of blockchain for good. I'm your host, Drew Simon. Now, before we dive in, please remember that this is not financial or legal advice, and always do your own research on any of the projects or investment opportunities that we discuss. Welcome, welcome to episode 237 of the CryptoUltras podcast. Today's episode is going to be a bit different. It's going to be a solo episode, a departure from the traditional interview format. A couple of reasons for this. One, I like to try different things to engage the audience, and you know, I've gotten some feedback that this could be interesting to explore a bit more. You know, but more importantly, there's something like really important I want to speak to today. And I made a New Year's resolution. I know I normally hate New Year's resolutions. I think, you know, we should be making resolutions all the time, but nonetheless, I made a New Year's resolution to be more authentic in how I'm communicating and how I'm standing up for what I believe is right. And the truth is I've been really struggling lately, mentally, emotionally, professionally. You know, it's been a challenging time, I think, for folks in this space. And, you know, as I've been speaking with others that are building here, you know, I've heard a lot of the same things. A lot of feelings of frustration, kind of grief, uh, concern over the direction that the space is going in, and definitely a feeling of urgency. And I feel the same way. And I think I've been nervous to really kind of, you know, speak up. And I don't normally put myself out there, which is ironic since I host a podcast. But if we don't stand up for what we believe in, what are we really doing here? And I think this technology has so much, and more importantly, the community has so much amazing potential, but I really worry that we're at a place right now where certain influences are moving it in a direction that isn't really for the people and doesn't really jive with those, with that ethos of of decentralization and building things that preserve and elevate humanity and build a healthier planet. So I wanted to speak a little bit about that today. And to start things off, I want to just kind of frame the challenge and why I'm I'm feeling this way, you know, and why I think many are feeling this way in conversations that I've had in this space. And that, you know, we're watching a slide towards authoritarianism and corporate control globally. I mean, this has been a thing that's been on the in the works for many, many years and decades. And in many ways, technology is being used and weaponized to really accelerate that. And that's including crypto, which is something that I believe in deeply being captured, co-opted, and associated with forces that really stand up against everything that, you know, I got into this space for. And, you know, the uncomfortable truth is that the crypto has become associated with the far right, with corporate capture, not because of the technology, but because of who has been loudest, who has been funded, and who has shaped the narrative. Now, I don't want this to be an episode of doom and gloom, and I want there to be some hope here because that's what this podcast is about. And that's where this is ultimately going to lead is hope and why, you know, there's so much we can do to change the direction and to and to combat this. And I go back to why I started in this space and why I started Crypto Ultras and my vision behind blockchain as a tool for, you know, originally supporting impact work and uplifting nonprofits, but then it really quickly grew into something bigger for me, something that I saw as really the tools for democracy, transparency, community ownership, human dignity. You know, and after speaking with hundreds and hundreds of folks that are building in this space and telling their stories, this is not naive. It is happening. It may have been naive at the start when I first started in this space, may have been more aspirational, but we're at a point right now where these things are really happening. These tools are being used in this way to build a better world, but those stories are being drowned out. We are at a fork in the road where blockchain will either become another tool for authoritarianism, surveillance, corruption, and extraction, a tool used by billionaires to grow their wealth and further inequities at the expense of others, or it can be an infrastructure for democracy, community ownership, and human resilience. That choice is not inevitable. It is ours to make, and right now we are losing that narrative. So I want to look at the landscape here a bit and what's at stake and what I feel like we're up against, and as we fight for this vision is crypto as a force for good. The global political moment is extremely challenging for many, including myself. Authoritarianism is undoubtedly rising around the world, and not just in distant places, but in democracies we thought were stable, including the United States of America. We're seeing pushes for centralization of power, for the use of state forces against the people, to commit violence against their own citizens, to rip people off the streets for arbitrary reasons. It's insane and quite frankly, really depressing and scary. And what's even scary is that we're seeing technology being weaponized for surveillance infrastructure, financial deplatforming, censorship, information warfare. We see the groundwork being laid for central bank digital currencies or CBDCs that are designed for control rather than inclusion, programmable money that can be turned off. We're seeing the tools of freedom being turned into tools of control. And I think that the uncomfortable truth that we need to grapple with and come to terms with is that crypto has become associated with the far right, with mega, with the ultra-rich. And not because of the technology, but because of who has been loudest, who has been funded, and who has helped shape the narrative. I think a great example to look at is the Trump meme coin debacle. And I want to do a shout out to our friends at Web34Good. They did a post a while back on their newsletter that really kind of unpacked some of the concerns around the Trump meme coin. But to me, when I think about the Trump meme coin, I think about a sitting president launching a token that could essentially function and serve as a vehicle for bribery and grift, a tool to enrich insiders while retail holders lose. This is not innovation. It is extraction wearing a freedom mask. And to add to all this, some large institutions that were built to advocate for the industry are still supporting this. So then you ask yourself, what are we advocating for exactly? And I think a good example is despite everything, the meme coin grift, the moves to centralize power, the attacks on citizens, democratic institutions, some organizations still choose to give incredibly high ratings to figures that are undermining democracy. In fact, if you were to go to the Stand with Crypto website today and navigate to their ratings of politicians, you would see that Trump and JD Vance, at the time of recording, both still have an A rating. It has been so painful watching many in the crypto community praise Trump as the savior of crypto, and seeing many respected institutions still do so as well, when in reality it has been clear since the beginning that these actions are the detriment of crypto, or at least the crypto that I believe in, and more importantly, the world. We can speak to things like the Genius Act and how it has opened the door for stablecoin and crypto adoption, and yes, there are certainly benefits to that regulatory clarity, but can we truly praise a government for supporting the passage of an act while simultaneously benefiting off a meme coin that wreaks of corruption, and when that same government is doing everything they can to centralize power in the hands of the few? So even if we were to believe that, in this example, Trump is indeed good for crypto, at what expense? Because crypto is not more important than human rights, than democracy, than freedom. The fact of the matter is that I fear that the connection between crypto and the current administration, a connection that has been built up for quite a while now and supported by many institutions in the space, has set crypto back years in the public imagination. It has broken trust and it'll take a long time to earn it back. So I think there's a question we have to ask ourselves when we're supporting or elevating politicians because they're quote unquote good for crypto or supportive of crypto. We have to ask ourselves what matters more to us as a community? Ethics and values, or people who say the right buzzwords? What's more important, crypto or human dignity? If we can't answer that clearly, we have already lost. Because in public discourse, crypto now means speculation, scams, billionaire toys. The stories of blockchain for humanitarian aid, financial inclusion, transparent governance are drowned out. We are letting the worst actors define us. We're also in the midst of a disinformation crisis, a truly epistemic crisis where no one knows what is true anymore. We have algorithmic amplification of outrage, foreign interference, AI generated content, sowing disinformation and fear and chaos. This is being exploited by bad actors. And democracies and those that are fighting are struggling to respond. We're at a time when truth itself has become contested territory. So this all sounds like doom and gloom, and I'm sorry for this being so depressing. This is not the normal tone we use for this conversation, of course, but I think I want to really focus on, you know, the hopeful side of this, because as I laid out that gr that landscape, it is terrifying and it is not great the situation that we're in in many ways, but I still think that there's been so much good stuff that's been happening. And the fact of the matter is that it's just not being told as much. There's another story, and it's one that I've been really trying to share through this podcast, and one that so many incredible folks are building towards. I'm talking about real people using blockchain to deliver humanitarian aid, where traditional rails are blocked or weaponized, sending millions in aid to folks in Gaza, Myanmar, Ukraine. We're seeing worker-owned financial infrastructure built on solidarity, not speculation. Participatory funding that empowers local communities, tools to verify truth and combat disinformation, censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving elections, values-aligned money that regenerates rather than extracts, and so much more. This is not hypothetical. It is happening. But it is fragile, underfunded, and drowned out by noise, and the builders doing this work are often swimming against the current. So where do we go from here? This is something I've been putting a lot of thought into lately, as I've been, you know, working my way through these kind of feelings that I've been having, and I feel that there are some important commitments we as a community can make as we navigate this inflection point. And the first, and it may seem super obvious, I mean because it kind of is, is to build for democracy and not control. There's a very real threat here, where we're seeing technology used by bad actors and authoritarian regimes to surveil citizens, where financial deplatforming is used as a political weapon against protesters, dissidents, and journalists, platforms where they can freeze accounts, deplatform voices, or block fundraising at will, as has been the case, in example for many Gaza fundraisers being removed from prominent platforms. We're seeing the development of CBDCs or central bank digital currencies without privacy protections, leaving centralized authorities with the tools of control and not inclusion. At the same time, we're seeing the algorithmic application that has fractured shared reality, often at the behest of state actors. And it has led us to a place where no one knows what is true anymore, and bad actors are quick to exploit this. But just as this technology can be used for nefarious purposes, it can certainly be used to fight back and build better systems that empower people. Some of the solutions we're seeing today include verifiable credentials and decentralized identity built on ZK proofs, being built by projects like Self Protocol and Reramo that allow people to participate in democratic processes while protecting their identity. We're seeing this used in on-chain voting and consensus building tools that enable communities to run their own decentralized elections without the need for centralized authorities. And I recommend folks look into the case of Reramo, where they ran some really cool shadow elections with dissidents and activists in Russia using this technology that shows how it can work in practice. Another game changer is on-chain attestations and decentralized platforms that protect journalists, activists, and citizens from being censored. We've even seen super cool use cases like pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong using blockchain to save democracy-aligned news and media that was being removed by authorities, attempting to disappear it from the internet. We're seeing the development of tools to counter misinformation and build community-governed truth layers like those being built by Alina Protocol and Geobrowser. There's exciting experimentation happening all over the place around how blockchain credentials can be used to verify who said something, when, and whether it has been altered, protecting us from AI slop and disinformation. There's also an incredible opportunity here to build new layers of accountability for public officials. This could include on-chain campaign finance, ensuring all finances flowing through parties can be transparently audited and monitored by anyone. And this can go a long way in removing dark money from politics. This could also include documenting concerning actions or behaviors on an immutable record. A neat example of this is in Uttar Pradesh, India, where it was announced that police in the Firozabad district would now be receiving public complaints on the Polygon blockchain. It enabled users to freely enter complaints in the portal, check on the status of the case, know who the assigned officer is, and get alerts on the progress of a complaint. Imagine a system where you could check anything related to your local democracy on-chain. Voting records, campaign financing, budgeting, you name it. And an immutable record that could be audited by anyone and tampered by no one. And of course there's the original promise of crypto and building money free from state control, because we can't forget how long money has been used as a weapon and how long certain people have been disadvantaged by the way that our financial systems have been set up. The opportunity here is incredible if we can seize the moment. The tools exist or are being built today to make this all a reality. So if you are a building, ask yourself, does this distribute power or concentrate it? Support projects building democratic principles, not just efficient ones. Resisting the temptation to optimize for growth at the cost of value. Consider who benefits and who is harmed by what you build, and try to resist building just where the money is. So the second commitment is to design for community ownership and non-extraction. At the moment, we are seeing the corporate capture of Web3, and this could look like VC-dominated projects optimizing for exit, not impact, or large corporations acting as the protectors of crypto while amassing more control and extracting user wealth, sometimes under the veil of decentralization. And I want to be clear that I'm not against corporations or companies or anything like that. In fact, there's many that I work with on a regular basis, and there's many out there that are doing some great work that are really uplifting the ecosystem. And I've also mentioned many times the importance of meeting people where they're at. And this sometimes includes integrating Web 2 platforms or traditional platforms that are operated by big tech companies or large corporations, and that's okay because the reality is that the most frictionless experiences sometimes involve centralization and leveraging platforms created by big tech companies. But it's important that we consider how we can use this as a bridge as we build the future we want, where value flows primarily to communities. We've seen so many great examples where traditional tech companies or web two companies like Opera Browser, for example, plays a large role in supporting the rollout of MiniPay, which has impacted millions in Africa, giving them access to new financial tools and ways to on and off ramp cash. We've seen platforms using WhatsApp as a way to communicate with users and to onboard them. And of course, we know that crypto still does live on X, which is a centralized platform. As much as I don't like being there often and I have some problems with the space. The reality is we can't be perfect. There's no black and white. There's a lot of gray that we need to navigate, and it's important that we do so with good intention and good heart and build towards what we believe in. Beyond corporate capture, we've also seen many examples of decentralization theater, where there's DAOs with no real community power, and governance tokens are held by insiders, operating under the guise of decentralization. Another important consideration is how we navigate the meme coin culture, which can bring with it some benefits as we've seen, where meme coins have been used to raise money for causes and to get the community excited about really cool things. But we've also seen many examples where they're designed to be pump and dump by default and retail as exit liquidity. But again, there are so many cool ways we can use this technology to flip the script. It could look like worker-owned cooperatives and solidarity economics, as we've seen with Bread Cooperative and their Solidarity Fund. It could be community currencies and mutual aid infrastructure, as we're seeing with grassroots economics and Cointer and Haraka. Participatory funding that empowers local decision makers, as seen with Gitcoin, Octin, Giveth, Thumbdock Community, and many others who are testing these tools every day. L2s that fund public goods and not corporations. Create economies where value flows to creators and not platforms. Stablecoins like Loan Azos that fund public goods, not just a few people living up in luxury in the Bahamas. So as we move forward, it's important to consider how we can build systems where the people who use them also own them. Systems that reject extractive tokenomics, the design for sustainability and not hype cycles, and at the same time, be willing to say no to money that comes with strings attached to values we don't share. As we build, we can ask ourselves, who captures the value here and is that who should? And the third commitment is to build resilient infrastructure for when everything else fails. Because, if anything, over the last few years we've seen how vulnerable the systems that we trust every day can be. And the way systems are built right now, they are often controlled by the few, creating unique vulnerabilities. Because when these systems are in the hands of the few, they can also be weaponized by the few. It could be banking freezes, aid blockades, currency collapses, deplatforming. And authoritarian regimes know this, and they know if you control the money, you also control the people. But we've also seen cases where infrastructure collapses due to war or natural disasters, leaving people without access to finances and communications. And when traditional systems break or are weaponized, marginalized communities are often hit first and often hardest. Crypto has an incredible opportunity to be the foundational layer for systems that are resilient and can be trusted when they're needed most. We've seen this in the form of crypto as humanitarian rails, aid delivery in conflict zones where traditional finance can or will not go. A great example of this is Hesipe, which is helping get aid into Afghanistan and bypassing the Taliban. Another example is the digital currency created by the NUG in Myanmar, which essentially functions as a parallel currency to the one locally used in Myanmar, but being used to bypass the military junta who currently has control over the economic systems. So it's been really cool in what they've done in that they've also built uh new tools, uh applications so that folks can not only receive money, but transact, pay bills, do things like that with this wallet that's be created and this digital parallel currency. We've seen systems for sharing information when platforms are shut down. How stable coins can be lifelines in collapsing economies, allowing people to transact while securing their wealth from inflation. And another really cool example that I'd like to highlight is anticipatory action. And this is one that I often highlight because it's so neat in that it uses many different blockchain primitives to happen. Essentially, in a nutshell, anticipatory action is a new way of looking at humanitarian aid where it shifts it from a reactive to proactive approach. And what I mean by that is in traditional humanitarian aid, oftentimes we'll see something like a disaster happen or extreme weather. And then after the fact, folks will raise money and send it abroad to help those that have been impacted. And that's great, and it's really important, and there'll always be a need for that. Disciple action, on the other hand, uses things like predictive analytics, weather data, satellite data, and many other things to predict when an extreme weather event, a natural disaster is going to occur, and then sending that aid in advance to folks so that they can protect themselves, their families, and their livelihoods. And we've seen really cool pilots of this being done, mostly by MercyCore Ventures, who is really leading the way in this space. In Kenya, they did a really cool partnership with Fortune Credit, Shamba Network, and Diva Donate, where they tested blockchain-powered smart contracts to deliver anticipatory cash transfers to pastoralists in Kenya facing drought. So essentially they would monitor for all these different indicators that determined if there was distress conditions for the vegetation in Kenya. And if a certain threshold was met, it would automatically result in cash being sent to these pastoralists to protect them and their livestock. And the results were really amazing, with a 75% reduction in transfer costs, a 90% reduction in time to deliver funds from 7 to 10 days to just 14 and a half hours, and 53% of the participants reported improved ability to meet major unexpected expenses. If you want to learn more about anticipatory action, which I think is just so cool, and there's so many ways that blockchain really is enabling this and making it happen, check out our episode uh 192 on the podcast with Sandra from Mercy Core Ventures, where we really dive deeper into this. So, overall, when we think about resilient infrastructure, again, it's important to think about how we build this infrastructure that works when the state will not or cannot help. And building tools that protect the vulnerable and everyone, not just the wealthy. So it's important to consider how we build for the people who need it most, not just the people who can pay the most. Sorry, that was really cheesy. It's also important to stress test your infrastructure. Think about would this work in a crisis for someone who doesn't have access to traditional systems? Remember that the unsexy infrastructure, the rails, the identity systems, their verification layers are often what matters most. And prioritize accessibility and usability for non-technical users. And the challenge with this is, of course, how do we balance this, which sometimes entails using legacy centralized platforms to meet users where they're at, with the focus of decentralization and shifting power from large institutions to people. And this is a great area. There's no good answer here. It's just something that we as a community have to grapple with and figure out. In commitment number four, I think it's important for us to consider how we can uphold a more holistic version of what it means to be pro-crypto. Because the fact of the matter is that there's a lot of people who still are hesitant to get involved in this space because of stigmas that exist. I see this all the time when I'm chatting with nonprofits about the potential that comes with crypto and blockchain to scale their impact. I hear a lot of the same things about isn't crypto just one big scam? Isn't it just a bunch of criminals? Like these are things that I often hear when I'm chatting with folks. And so I think we need to consider why that's the case. And I think a big part of that is how we're framing what it means to be pro-crypto. We need to ask ourselves questions like, is it pro-crypto to launch immune coin while simultaneously dismantling democracy and centralizing power? Or when a country's leader embraces crypto while simultaneously engaging in horrendous human rights abuses, the arbitrary detainment of citizens, and extrajudicial killings, as we've seen in El Salvador, whether a president has enthusiastically embraced Bitcoin. Is it more crypto to want a coin to go up or to want centralized systems to go down and become more decentralized? Is it pro-crypto for growth and power in the space to be concentrated in the hands of corporations in the elite or in local communities? What's more important? And throughout all this and these four commitments I've made, there's something I want to stress again, that none of this is clean. It's not black and white, there's a ton of gray here. And all we can do is try our best to navigate it. Because I know there's a lot more that I can do to really live up to these commitments, and I'm gonna try my best, and that's all we can ask. There will be times where sometimes we need to go where we get paid, even if it's not the best place where we want to build according to our values. All we can do is try our best and always keep that North Star of what crypto means to us in our head. So as we close, I want to pose a bit of a direct challenge here. First, I think we need to acknowledge the tension that is here. Crypto's reputation is in the gutter in many ways, and um, and some of this is deserved. There's the association with grift, the far right, with extraction, and this didn't come out of nowhere. And because of this, so many have become disillusioned. A great example lately was I was reading an article about a UBI case study where they were testing out universal basic income on the Marshall Islands, and it mentioned in the title how they were using crypto to deliver the universal basic income. In the comments section, every single comment was just about crypto and trashing crypto, but didn't even look at the fact that they were delivering a really cool universal basic income program. That's the challenge, is that sometimes, even when we tack crypto onto something cool, it can taint that thing. So we need to think about why is that the case and how do we write that. And because of this, so many have become disillusioned. I know I sure as hell have, on many occasions, and have even thought on a couple of times whether this was the right space for me to be in. But the answer is not to abandon the space, it's to fight for what it could be. After all, the tools themselves are neutral, and what matters is who builds them, for whom, and with what values. So to builders, the tools that you create encode values, whether you intend them to or not. And shout out to my friend Josh from the Blockchain Socialist Podcast and Bread Cooperative for inspiring this line of thought. Every design choice is a political choice. It's important that we choose wisely, build for democracy, for community, for resilience. The world needs it. To newcomers, do not let the noise define what is possible here. Yes, there is grift, yes, there is hype, but there's so much incredible work being done and some really cool experimentation that opened the doors for new possibilities to create impact in ways we never thought were possible. And after working in many different spaces with many different people, I can say that there are so many people building here who genuinely want to use this technology to build a better world. Find them and join them. To the skeptics, especially the progressive ones, I get it. The association with the far right, the scams, the environmental critiques, they are real. But writing off the entire technology means ceding it to the worst actors. The question is not whether blockchain will exist. It is who will shape it and for what purpose. And to the crypto community, we have to be louder. The story of blockchain for good is being drowned out by the story of blockchain for grift, and we need to change that. And I will personally commit a crypto altruist to doing everything I can to amplify the builders doing this work, to tell the stories that matter and to hold the space accountable. I know that there's so much more I can do, and really as I'm reading this out, this is just as much a call to action to myself, in a way to hold myself personally accountable than anything else. So I invite you to join this movement and share these stories, build with intention, demand better from the industry. The fork in the road here is real, and the path we take, the one that we build, will shape whether blockchain becomes another tool for oppression and extraction, or infrastructure for democracy, community, and human dignity. I know which future I'm building towards, and I hope you'll join me. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me and for entertaining me today as I share these thoughts that I've been thinking a lot about lately. I felt that I really needed to get this off my chest, and that if I didn't, well I would just sit on it and it would get worse. So thank you for letting me do that today, and for being there and for being a part of this community. It really means a lot. And that wraps up today's episode of CryptoUltras. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit us at CryptoUltras.com for articles, resources, and more. If you love what you heard, it would mean the world if you could rate review and subscribe to the podcast. Your support is huge in helping us reach more listeners like you and keeping the platform going strong. Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode. Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.