Centralized v. Decentralized Capital
Firstly, capital or money is by definition the means to produce infrastructure, and infrastructure naturally leads to power in all its forms. Whether this organization process is distributed voluntarily or by force, its influence on the stakeholders in its system is a trivial aftereffect. The most important factors are set generally in stone at birth.
Recently, I've been thinking greatly about central v. decentral organization, especially given the recent pop in lumens. Aside from the fundamental technical obviousness, which I will not care to cover, it's gotten me thinking about the difference between Web3's new world and the incumbent central orgs. Namely, I was just contemplating the interactions I've had with Rahul, a director at GT's CREATEX.
Rahul did such an excellent job trying his damnedest to help me out, from the first pitch I did freshman year for MonerADs, where he introduced me to Brave. That was the basis of someone who I could tell quite understood their ecosystem, and yet also one who was quite inextricably linked to the luminous claws of central VCs, especially in the local area.
God, I laugh at the illogicality of nearby capital investment, especially in technology companies for all's sake. And yet it is perhaps most keenly this trend that creates the exostructure of modern centralized capital, employment, and power. To think that "surrendering" D.C. to the southern Washington over NYC was in itself a move of political tact ought to show just how meaningful these geographic choices become.
And yet geography itself is increasingly online in the form of attention, community, and content. It's in this light that I see so clearly how the distribution of capital from these exostructural VC interests perpetuate wasteful policies like back to office, for the interests of their largely real-estate holdings. It parallels the "cultish" accusations of BTC as something only done and growing to enrich the early adopters, but that is inexplicably similar to the trends in city-based real estate development.
I remember Grandpa W told me once about how he and a big name in his small town before Plattsburg went around town. There was a new proposal in place for the municipality to join the nearby city's zone. They went door to door campaigning people to show up at the courthouse that week to contest, object, and remove the shift.
When the date came, they all showed up in masses, crowding the room to its capacity. And with everyone wearing a red shirt to signal their disapproval, the bill was unanimously struck down. All this despite material outside influence to capture this land as an increasing resource for the city's expanding tax base.
Perhaps in crypto, we have similar attributes across the network, occupying our segments of the "digital geography," a landscape defined only by the human imagination, ingenuity, and experience. I'm excited to see what capitalism might look like when investors have more on their minds than raw aggregated fund returns. What could be when we responsibly empower the masses to deploy, delegate, or defend their economic power at will?