Review : “Crypto for People Who Don’t Follow Crypto” by Jon Stokes
“Crypto for People Who Don’t Follow Crypto” is an article written by Jon Stokes.
As one can guess from the title of the article, “Crypto for People Who Don’t Follow Crypto” aims to convince non-crypto people the disruptive forces of cryptocurrencies without ever mentioning economic buzzwords such as “fiat” and “sound money”. The author described a potentially new Amazon deemed the “decentralized commerce”, which embodies the ethos of cryptocurrencies such as self-custodian, borderless and elimination of third party. I believe the author purpose is to use a more relatable topic like commerce to convince non-crypto people that cryptocurrencies will change and disrupt many business models for the better.
As much as I like Jon’s fresh and unique explanation on the disruptive forces of cryptocurrencies, I strongly believe that Jon could have further solidify his point by bringing up the point on disintermediation and its effects on labor.
Disintermediation was brought up in the “decentralized commerce” example but it failed to put across in a manner that will be able to relate more to the masses, which is labor. For example, disintermediation in the “decentralized commerce” will be at a greater scale than what Amazon did to Brick and Mortar stores. Disintermediation in the “decentralized commerce” means there is no need for intermediaries and facilitators like Amazon or Banks. Could you imagine the amount of jobs being displaced in the e-commerce and banking industry?
The concept of labor can be further build on the perspective of Jan Breman and Marcel van der Linden’s debate in “The Return of the Social Question at a Global Level” that is the “West is more likely to follow the Rest”. (Breman & Van der Linden, 2014 : 920) The West is likely to follow the labor relation in less developed countries (Rest) where “the working classes are trapped in a trajectory of exploitation and forced together into a race to the bottom”. (Breman & Van der Linden, 2014 : 938) This statement can be supported by the following chart on US’s real wage growth. (Desilver, 2018)
We are in an unprecedented moment where not only real wage growth remains constant since 1964, there will also be a mass displacement of jobs from emerging technologies such as the Blockchain. These emerging technologies are not net creator of jobs. (weforum, 2020 : 49)
There is a silver lining in Cryptocurrencies. The fact that major Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are open-sourced and censorship resistance, anyone can participate in this new paradigm. Participating in the growth of cryptocurrencies will give one the opportunity to bet on this new paradigm and hedge against an uncertain future of jobs displacement.
Therefore, I feel that Jon’s article can be improved by incorporating the effects of disintermediation on labor to convince non-crypto people the disruptive forces of cryptocurrencies.
References
Breman, J., & Van der Linden, M. (2014). Informalizing the Economy: The Return of the Social Question at a Global Level. Development and Change, 920–940.
Desilver, D. (2018, August 7). Pew Research Center. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
weforum. (2020, October 1). weforum. Retrieved from weforum: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf