Why Crypto

a love letter

I moved from Northampton, Massachusetts, to Lagos, Nigeria, in 2013. Fresh out of college, I took an entry-level job that paid me in Naira, the local currency. One morning, I woke up to the news that my hard-earned Naira had depreciated by 8% overnight. In the following weeks, inflation kicked in as imports became more expensive, including household staples like rice.

"Never take weak currency," I told myself, and started converting my Naira to USD the moment I received my paycheck (note: this is a privilege only foreigners have). 

The crisis also revealed to me that my expat friends, some of whom were working for multinationals, were using the Bitcoin rail to bypass Central Bank currency control. That was my first introduction to alternative financial rails, permissionless albeit somewhat taboo.

More than a decade later, things have gotten worse. As I'm typing these words, the Naira has lost 69% of its value against the dollar despite the FX reforms.

The devaluation continues.

Source: https://blog.busha.co/how-the-naira-depreciated-against-the-dollar-in-20-years/

It’s a sad story. With rich natural resources and a large young population base, Nigeria's economy relies heavily on exporting crude oil. When oil prices go down, the entire economy goes haywire. Adding to the 69 layers of corruption, Nigeria’s economy is like a crippling giant, never realizing its potential.

No wonder Nigeria remains one of the most active crypto markets in the world.

When I heard about the opportunity to work at ConsenSys in 2017, it was a no-brainer to leave my tradtech job and jump into this “paradigm shift.” Like a real bull market maxi, I believed that all things must be "put on the blockchain":

• All banks will adopt crypto rails in no time. SWIFT is for the old guards.

• All documents must be signed and verified on the blockchain. Even better, let users borrow against these docs.

• All electricity grids must be powered by blockchain x IoT. Let’s call it “internet of energy” (spoiler alert, there’s a coin here).

I even proposed putting traffic lights on the blockchain for Dubai’s Road and Traffic Authority, among other weird use cases that made zero sense.

Seven years and two cycles later, while crypto hasn’t seen the "billion-people mass adoption," it has grown into a niche yet formidable economy. Each cycle brings in a new narrative, a new form of crypto-economic schema, and new social layers.

My own views of what crypto is, and is not, have also changed. Many of my original beliefs have waned; a few remained, and new ones emerged. This essay attempts to examine the “why crypto” question from one person’s perspective. 

I hope to be both intellectually and emotionally honest.

The Alternative Financial Rails Thesis Stays

Last Devconnect, I went to the Istanbul Grand Bazaar to learn about the local OTC markets. Situated adjacent to the gold sellers are a few nicely renovated shops with giant neon signs of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Tether, ETH, Litecoin, and Monero. Walking in, one can easily buy or sell crypto using fiat (here’s a very thorough blog post from the Daimo team). For larger amounts, customers can WhatsApp the owner and arrange an in-person pickup.

About $100 million gets OTC’d between the streets. 

Customers include local Turks and international (mostly Russian) individuals who want to save, arbitrage, or trade crypto, and local government officials who use crypto for not-so-compliant deeds.

Unsurprisingly, most transactions settle on Tron. When I asked the locals about different Ethereum Layer 2s, I got innocent stares back.

The whole visit brought my Nigeria days back.

The first and most indispensable use case of crypto remains the gateway to more a chaotic but free financial rails. It existed and will continue to exist for the very reason of humans pursuing financial freedom. Whether it is in the Turkish Grand Bazaar, the Nigerian black market, or among airdrop farmers, people will always seek 1) antifragile currency, 2) yields, and 3) occasional gambling.

While the current infrastructure serves some users, it’s far from sufficient: chains are still janky; fees are high; user experiences remain suboptimal.

If we want more people to access a permissionless financial rail, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must not discriminate against users who cannot afford gas fee; we must not discriminate against users who can’t afford a laptop and high-end phone; we must hold decentralization and censorship resistance close to our hearts because, otherwise, why bother?

The “Why Crypto” thesis is deeply financial.

Vibes

Crypto is weirdly fun. Crypto debates are intellectual and silly at the same time. Crypto events are intense and quirky. Crypto memes may seem full retardio but are undeniably humorous.

Remilio

However, the greatest fun I've experienced comes from initiating the Hotpot DAO—a social collective where people gather and eat hotpot. This idea was born during MCON, a DAO-focused conference in Denver in 2021. Overwhelmed by a craving for spicy Asian food, I proposed to a group of attendees that we should forgo the conference meals and venture to a remote hotpot restaurant instead. 

Surprisingly, more than ten people aped in my pool2

At a large round table, our group consisted of degen traders, investooor, cracked devs, and operators like myself. The initial small talk was awkward, marked by moments of silence, but the atmosphere warmed up as some degen began sharing their experiences getting rekt on a shitcoin. That 10-people hotpot lunch is now turned into a global phenomenon with multiple city chapters hosting events independently.

Hotpot, in essence, mirrors the ethos of crypto: it's inclusive of all ingredients, embraces all behaviors, and the flavors only deepen with time. Unlike the prevalent tribalism on Crypto Twitter, in-person gatherings of the crypto community are characterized by a warm and cohesive harmony.

Taking this sense of in-person connection a step further leads to movements like Zuzalu, centered around the concept of the Network State but with a softer approach to politics. Instead of bonding over a meal, why not co-live for two months?

The appeal of Zuzalu is rooted in its radical approach to bring online communities offline. It advocates for starting anew rather than attempting to amend what's wrong.

The “Why Crypto” thesis is deeply social.

Anti-cyclical Tech Crypto

Crypto is well-known for its four-year cycles. Despite the prices roundtripping, the underlying technology has consistently advanced. I vividly recall in 2020, when Layer 2 protocols were just beginning to gain attention, how the ConsenSys R&D team, stationed in Paris, developed a zk-powered privacy payment chain in collaboration with Mastercard. The concept of utilizing zero-knowledge proof to hide transaction details seemed like sorcery to me.

A year later, upon my return to Paris, I was astonished to find that the team had completed a type 3 zkEVM, a task I had been told would take another two or three years. 

Tech crypto isn't just exciting; it's the foundation of everything we do—scaling base layers, securing private keys, and advancing privacy-centric technologies. 

Tech crypto is also deeply philosophical. Every technological trade-off carries with it an underlying assumption about what it optimizes for the end-users. Some optimizes for decentralization, while others optimizing for wealth-creation. Some optimizes for legitimacy, while others just want people to have fun.

Tech crypto has a magnetic pull that consistently attracts new talents to our niche industry. Researchers from vastly different fields find themselves drawn into the crypto realm. Whether it's the allure of a permissionless innovation, the promise of a decentralized trust mechanism, or sometimes, the charm of autistic hackers.

The "Why Crypto" thesis is, at its heart, deeply technological. 

道阻且長，行則將至  

Which translates into: The Road Is Long and Obstructed, But By Continuing to Travel, One Will Eventually Arrive

It's easy to become engulfed by the cycles and grow cynical by the grifters. Yet it’s our job to turn grifts to gifts. While everyone has their own interpretation, I find it fitting to conclude with a quote from Vitalik’s cyberpunk manifesto:

"We are not here to merely create isolated tools and games but to build holistically towards a more free and open society and economy, where the different parts—technological, social, and economic—integrate harmoniously."

If that free and open society means 100x leverage on $ETH, so be it. If it means trading animals wif hats, so be it. If it means using crypto and saving on DeFi, love to see it. If it means building and solving adoption bottlenecks, then let’s do it together.