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What’s That Problem With NFTs, Again?
Grappling with Dan Olsen’s “Line Goes Up”
[last updated 7/7/2022]
Not Financial Advice (NFA)| Do Your Own Research (DYOR)
A few days ago, Dan Olsen dropped a comprehensive, scathing video in which he does his absolute best to deliver a Mortal Kombat fatality to just about everything I’ve devoted a year of my life to.
It’s nothing personal, of course. But he’s got a lot of bitter pills for those of us who believe in the tech and are trying to build the blockchain industry. His words cut all the deeper by coinciding with a crypto market drop of 30% in the last week or so. He couldn’t have planned the release more perfectly if he wanted to.
Some bros treated the piece very dismissively, as if Olsen had only made the video for attention and profiteering.
Judging by the number of likes, a better approach was to playfully deflect from his underlying arguments using humor and visual memes, as De Tomaso Panera did.
But the most powerful thing to be done with The Problem With NFTs is to take its arguments seriously.
For those of us who really do care about changing the game and liberating humanity from oppressive, corrupt, coercive systems of control, Olsen is generously showering insights more valuable than digital gold. He’s holding up a mirror to our blind spots. It takes courage to look, but it’s well worth it.
In this article, I’ll give my most faithful representation of his position through a 20 minute summary of the 2 hour+ video. The perspectives and quotes are his, and I may or may not agree with each point.
