The Blockchain Socialist

In this episode I spoke to David Z Morris , Chief Insights columnist at Coindesk who wrote a really nice book review of Block Radicals and creator of the Crypto Crooks podcast. David's been following the crypto space since near the beginning when he reported on the gold bug community's interest in bitcoin a decade ago. He is also the author of a book called Bitcoin is Magic . During the...

This episode is coming out on August 8th, 2023, aka publishing day for my book, " Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It "! On July 23rdI had the privilege to present my new book  in New York City at the offices of Metalabel for the official book launch event! I was also interviewed by the Chief Insights Columnist at CoinDesk , David Morris about the book and...

In this episode I spoke to Eric Annan , founder of Aya , a startup in Africa trying to bring more Africans into the crypto space I met while at Zuzalu. We had some very interesting conversations together while there and I thought he would be great to have on the show to discuss crypto from one African perspective. During the discussion we spoke about the realities of crypto in Africa, the potentia...

In this episode I spoke with Ashley Buck , the founder of ReSource Finance and was also the first employee of Consensys. ReSource Finance is a decentralized mutual credit protocol and ecosystem building more regenerative economies by enabling growth without capital. ReSource is innovative in the mutual credit space because it adds a built in system for managing risk in the case of a default. Durin...

In this episode we continue Phase 2 of OTNS with Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation. We discuss his concept of cosmo-localism which advocates for everything heavy to be local, and everything light to be global, how many medieval institutions were cosmo-local, and the implications of the rise of knowledge workers detached from physical territory.   Check out a previous episode to learn m...

While at Zuzalu, Primavera and I spoke with Jessy Kate Schingler who also attended and contributed to the coordi-nations private workshops. During the interview we spoke about her work on extitutional theory, her experience in building communities with intentional communities, and how this all relates to corrdi-nations. Since Zuzalu, Jessy and Primavera wrote a written explanation of what coordi-n...

For this episode I spoke to Ethen Buchman ( @buchmanster ) and Tomaž Fleischman ( @T_Fleischman ) in person while at the  Commons Hub in Austria from May 22nd to 28th for the Collaborative Finance event with the Crypto Commons Association , one of the projects part of the Breadchain Cooperative . Ethan is one of the co-founders of Cosmos and works at Informal Systems, a workers cooperative that fo...

Last month Primavera and I spent about two weeks at Zuzalu in Montenegro with a team of people from Blockchaingov and elsewhere to concretely define our network state alternative of Coordi-Nations. We had five days of all day intensive workshops and three days of public presentations where we shared our findings to the attendees of Zuzalu. Right at the end of our experience at Zuzalu we recorded t...

Primavera and I have been at Zuzalu and took the opportunity to speak with Ameen Soleimani (@ameensol ) about his role in Ethereum history and the creation of Moloch DAO and Privacy Pools. We also discussed the geopolitical implications of crypto technology and how it relates to thinking about network states. Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov whe...

In this episode Primavera ( @yaoeo ), Tara Merk ( @mpg_dd ), and I speak to Jahed Monand ( @againstutopia ), co-founder and partner of Cerulean Ventures, co-host of The Ownership Economy podcast ( @ownereconomy ), and left wing anarchist. During the discussion we speak about Jahed's interactions with Balaji, the violence inherent to borders, and the real problem with heavily regulated industr...

In this episode I spoke with Richard Bartlett ( @RichDecibels ), a co-founder of tech co-op Loomio , non-hierarchical management consultancy The Hum , and director of the social impact collective Enspiral . His most recent endeavour is a community building network called Microsolidarity , Although I've followed him for a while now, we met in person at the Solarpunk NOW event in Austria organi...

For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Chris Berg , a cryptoeconomist, co-director at the RMIT Blockchain Hub , and a "former professional libertarian". During the conversation we spoke about Chris' revisionist history of blockchains, the shortcomings of TNS from a libertarian point of view, and Balaji's state envy. Like we mentioned at the beginning of the series,...

For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Jason Potts ( @profjasonpotts ), a professor of economics and co-director of blockchain innovation hub of RMIT. This is the first episode in the series where we're talking to someone who is still a fan of Balaji. During the interview we spoke about his disappointments in the book, how productive forces are evolving past market capitalism, and...

BONUS EPISODE I spoke to Matthew Slater ( @matslats ) about an upcoming event happening at the  Commons Hub in Austria from May 22nd to 28th called Collaborative Finance that he is helping organize with the Crypto Commons Association , one of the projects part of the Breadchain Cooperative which I co-founded. We spoke about what Collaborative Finance means, how money actually gets created in the p...

In this episode I spoke with Paul Seidler ( @brachlandberlin ), a member of the Terra0 artist collective. Terra0 has been around since 2016 when it released a whitepaper outlining how a technologically enhanced forest combine with blockchain could own itself and exert autonomy. Since then the collective has organized several exhibitions exploring this theme including Flowertokens , an experiment w...

For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Eric Alston ( @IncompleteRules ), a researcher at Block Science   and Scholar-in-Residence at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, focused on the study of institutions, namely property, constitutions and blockchains. During the interview we spoke about formal vs inform institutions, organizational complexity, and the...

Michael Zargham ( @mZargham ), the CEO of Block Science comes back on the show to help us continue to overthrow the ontological framework of network states from the perspective of complex systems engineering. During the discussion we talk about how network states don't optimize for reality, not confusing the map with the territory, and how an alternative to network states should handle infras...

We all know that the current landscape of social media is not ideal for various reasons, but one of those reasons is because the revenue model is based on the client-server model giving companies access to massive amounts of user data. For this interview I spoke with Stani Kulechov , founder of Aave and Lens Protocol , a new attempt at creating a decentralized social media solution. Generally in t...

Nathan Schneider comes back on the show to speak to Primavera and I to continue Overthrowing The Network State. During the conversation we talk about his experience at ETH Denver, the issue with using tech venture capital as a model for governance, and being intentional when exploring new political possibilities.  Mentioned Writing from Nathan Web3 Is the Opportunity We Have Had All Along Lighten...

Primavera and Morshed Mannan from Blockchaingov join me to speak to Raymond Craib , a  historian of modern Latin America who recently published the book Adventure Capitalism:  A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age . We spoke about the neocolonialism inherent to network states and previous attempts at utopian libertarian exits, the colonization of history,...

For this episode, I'm joined by Kelsie Nabben from Blockchaingov to speak to Quinn DuPont ( @quinndupont ), a historian of technology who recently gave a talk about his criticisms of TNS at the Commons Stack Unconference. He also recently published an article titled A Progressive Web3: From Social Coproduction to Digital Polycentric Governance . During the episode we interrogate Balaji's...

For this interview I spoke to Ferananda Ibarra ( @fer_ananda ), the Director of the Commons Engine , a Holochain Ecosystem service agency aiming to create a community of Regenerative Economy practitioners capable of designing ethical tokens and currencies to enable healthy flow, incentives, and feedback loops in order to evolve the economy and culture of their own communities and organizations. Du...

For this episode, Primavera and I speak with Douglas Rushkoff ( @rushkoff ). Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires , which we found to be relevant for understanding The Net...

In the second episode of OTNS,  Primavera ( @yaoeo ) and I are speaking to Glen Weyl ( @glenweyl ), the founder of RadicalxChange and a co-author of Vitalik Buterin's article on Decentralized Society. During the discussion we spoke about Balaji's oversimplifications in the book, how TNS was not written for human beings, and Glen's alternative for a Networked Society differs. Overthr...

NEW SERIES: Overthrowing the Network State in collaboration with Blockchaingov In the first episode of our series 'Overthrowing The Network State' (OTNS), we dive into the world of Balaji Srinivasan's recent book The Network State . The purpose of this series is to critique The Network State while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of gu...