Wework founder raises $70m for blockchain-based, “voluntary” carbon credits

It’s a scam matrioshka.

Even crypto’s biggest boosters admit that the industry has a scam problem. This is especially hard to deny now that hundred of billions of (real) dollars’ worth of (fake) “stablecoins” have gone up in smoke.

Crypto apologists will tell you that there are scams everywhere, and they’re not wrong. The productive economy has been systematic dismantled and replaced with financialized grifts: private equity, REITs, SPACs, MLMs, ad-fraud, and monopoly. That means the only way to save for retirement, health emergencies or your kid’s college education is to roll the dice in a crooked casino where the house always wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/23/you-got-spacced/#the-house-always-wins

But even at this moment of peak scam, crypto stands out as especially scammy. There are some structural factors behind that. For one thing, crypto is complex — in fact, it’s doubly complex, because things like smart contracts can only be truly understood if you can read source-code and a prospectus, and most people understand neither.

Complexity is a fraudster’s best friend. Any time someone adds complexity to a proposition bet (“I’ll pay you X if Y happens”), you should assume that the complexity…