L.A.R.P. - An acronym that stands for Live Action Role Playing that was made famous by these guys.
Broken down into boomer terms, LARP’ing is pretending. The kids in the video are pretending to engage in medieval warfare, where hand to hand combat was how battles were won and lost, territories gained, religion spread, and culture evolved. How does this relate to blockchain and cryptocurrency?
Blockchain technology is secure, programmable, and immutable infrastructure that will warehouse the world’s data in due time. Its power is immense, and the first major industry blockchain is disrupting in a big way is Finance. Exciting right? I think so, but we need to consider the ramifications of changing the global financial system. Everything important is connected to finance, including banking, politics, economies, country borders and national sovereignty.
The accomplishments of DeFi and blockchain to date are extraordinary. The most basic function of earning interest on your money, e.g. 5% on dollar pegged stablecoin like USDC, has created tremendous amounts of value. It’s no big mystery why there are currently >$110b in stablecoins across various blockchains.
But to think we’re even close to upending the status quo comprised of intermediaries, rent seekers, lobbyists, and other centralized authorities, you’re kidding yourself…we have a long way to go.
I worked in the world of wind and solar energy between 2008-2021 and witnessed first hand how challenging disruptive technology can be to adopt. I specifically helped utilities deal with the challenge of integrating renewable energy into their supply stack by forecasting the generation for the next week. These utilities were full of lifer employees affectionately known as DOUGs (Dead Old Utility Guys). These well compensated and well pensioned 930-430 workers had zero motivation to learn anything new, work harder than their peers, and showed resistance to any change. The monopolistic utility business model aside, these entities and individuals couldn’t wrap their heads around how they were supposed to deal with variable energy generators that ebb and flow with the weather patterns. Coal and gas are so much easier because you can turn them up and down when your customers need load. This was uncomfortable for them and needless to say, our sales cycles were very long.
Consider how the SEC, CFTC, IRS, FATF, politicians, businesses, and consumers view moving away from an economy controlled by the federal reserve (cash, credit cards, interest rates, regulations, etc) to blockchain based finance with very few intermediaries, open to anyone with an internet connection, and often anonymous/pseudonymous. It’s going to take years of education, building, and I’m writing this to remind the true believers that we all need to do our part to contribute.
My point is, none of us have made it and we are all LARP’ing. If the goal is decentralization, self-sovereignty, and self-custody of financial assets for anyone in the world, it doesn’t matter how many tokens you hold in your wallet right now.
So what can you do? I’m going to fake it til I make it. Feel free to emulate or ask me questions about how I’m helping create an open financial system spawning new opportunities for people around the world.
1) Invest - I invest in things you know and use - mostly DeFi and Ethereum because it’s the most active blockchain ecosystem. I also have been fortunate to join an amazing investment team as CIO for a DeFi fund
2) Donate - I generously donate to Gitcoin, an amazing organization turned DAO that has incorporated quadratic funding/matching to provide needed funds to developers building tools and infrastructure. I also contribute to a non-profit, Coin Center, the most vocal cryptocurrency advocates on Capitol Hill.
3) Participate - I am active in several DAOs - Bankless, ARCx, Rocket Pool. I truly believe there will be successful DAOs that provide fulltime employment for individuals in the future. A distributed workforce comprised of people who willingly contribute their most biologically programmed skills to projects they believe in is a powerful recipe.
4) Educate - I run an active community and share new and exciting opportunities, projects, help educate anyone who’s interested. I also blog actively to educate and inspire new entrants.
5) Reach out - Write to local politicians, help your brother/sister/mom/dad/neighbor get set up with a cryptocurrency wallet, gift a NFT, share on social media…lots of simple ways to connect with your village.
I’ll leave you with this…I avoid living in an echo chamber by listening to contrarians. Light, an infamous crypto trader, presented the ultimate bear case for cryptocurrency on UpOnly’s podcast. You won’t like what he has to say if you’re a bull and believe in DeFi/Ethereum as the “Future of France (finance),” but he has an interesting perspective about the impacts of domestic and international regulation, macroeconomics, and market cycles. We’re all LARPing, and the work is far from done.