Endless Thread - Tales from the Crypto | Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

An Endless Thread listener sends their response to our Tales from the Crypto series. They make the case that crypto and NFTs could improve the video game industry. Ben and Amory also give their final thoughts and reflections on Tales from the Crypto. ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. Mixing and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for this podcast comes from Nature is the Solution, a podcast from The Nature Conservancy. This show tells climate stories like a stubborn optimist, because hope, innovation, and nature itself are key. to solving the challenges ahead. Follow on your favorite podcast app. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Do you feel good about yourself, Amory? Gosh, in what aspect of my life? That's a big question.

Well, I mean, you made us do this series. This was your idea. Oh, God. So how do you feel about it? Do you feel good about yourself? You happy? There were some mornings when we were working on this that I woke up and was like,

damn it, Amory. It just rolls right off the tongue, and I feel it in my core. I'm glad that you convinced us to make this because it just won't stop. The crypto news don't stop. Crypto don't quit. Crypto don't quit. No. Biggest headline this week, do you know what it is?

It was on the radio this morning. I'm sure you were listening dutifully as I do. No, I actually don't know what it was. Kim Kardashian. Oh, yeah. She, uh, NFT. I don't remember, but it was exactly. It's been a long day.

Kim Kardashian has to pay a fine to the SEC. That's right. To the tune of $1.3 million thereabouts? Chump change for Kim Kardashian, yeah. Because she promoted an NFT token. Without disclosing that she had been paid to do so. On Instagram. She's paid a quarter of a million dollars to promote this.

Wow. And now she has to pay that back plus a mill. Okay. So to her, that's like a nickel and a quota. Well, how do you feel? I mean, do you feel like after all of this discussion of crypto and Ukraine, crypto and people buying islands, El Salvador, do you feel like you know more and do you feel better about crypto? Well, better is very squishy in this case. What I've been thinking about recently is that when we started this series, crypto had not fallen. Why are you laughing at me?

No, because it was like 10,000 years ago. Yeah, 10,000 years ago in 10,000 BC. Crypto had not fallen. We had not had the crypto crash yet. That's how long ago we started this series. And so I've thought a lot about, How it would be different, the ways in which it would be different if crypto was still, if, you know, currencies like Bitcoin, especially were still flying high. Yeah. When we put the series out. Bitcoin's down like 70% I think. Right. I keep going back to this thing that Ed Zitrin said. Mm-hmm.

He said, imagine money, but worse. Which is like, I feel like he was so cutting. Also, we got some heat from some people about the Crypto Kids episode because we were accused of being glad handy with the kids, like, congratulatory with the kids for, or just like too nice to the kids for their success. Which is kind of funny because, like, I don't feel like that episode felt all that nice in some ways. Like I actually, I felt a little guilty about just maybe pointing out some of the awkwardness and like listening to Miss Teen Crypto and then having Ed Zittran come in. And I think he called it utter pablam nonsense. So I don't, you know, and oh, here's one other thing. Ever since we started putting out, putting this stuff out, my crypto spam through the roof.

Really? I'm getting, I'm getting spammed on telegram, which is something I never use. I'm a, I'm a signal guy myself. But I'm, I got added to a telegram channel the other day about crypto. Someone just put me in the channel. And I started getting notifications. I kid you not. It was like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, my phone was blowing up. I've never been that popular. I mean, knock on wood. I have managed to avoid this, but I don't have a telegram or a signal. Dude. And it's starting to be in my tweets, my mentions now. The crypto has crept in. The crypto creeps. So how do you feel about us during this series? Are you glad we did it? No, I am. I mean, I feel like it's one of those things. It's just it goes back to this sort of age-old thing that we always land on, which is like it's a tool. It could be used for good. It could be used for evil. I think we always want to see people use new technologies to empower themselves in each other and care more about themselves and each other. And unfortunately, that's rarely the case.

I think part of my general feelings was at the root of my feelings about a lot of this is that I don't like big money. So the pursuit of big bunny, just for the sake of big money, Without a, you know, like I'm going to make a million dollars and then I'm going to build a school. Without having, you know, without a vision, whatever that vision may be. And maybe people have it. But I think that I have maybe unfairly linked big crypto wins with big aimless money. That is just big money for the sake of being big money.

Hard agree. I think where I land with it is that crypto is a tool that we have not figured out. And so is money that we have not figured out how to have like a responsible, fulfilling, productive relationship with that actually does do more good than harm. You know what I mean? Beautifully said. Am I getting? No, it's beautifully said. I just a minute ago you said the pursuit of big money, but it sounded to me like you said the pursuit of big bunny.

And basically all of my smiling is. But I do believe in. Right. Like all my smiling is that is like knowing that that's the case. Like Amory is not down with the pursuit of big money, but she's definitely down with the pursuit of big bunny. Yeah. Yeah. We have mixed feelings about this.

Yeah. But I think what we should do is we should call up the Rediter who wrote us and was like, hey, I'm not the type of person you would think to be pro-crypto and pro-NFTs. Mm-hmm. but I am and here's why. And she's a listener. She wrote to us, her name is Shelby. I think she's in Philly. Let's call her.

Great. Hey, Shelby. Hey, hi. Hi. We should have done that more in harmony, but it's not our best. One, two, three. Hi, Shelby. I thought you were going to go down.

I did go down. Shelby. Hi, Shelby. Is this a good use of your time, Shelby? Yeah. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

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Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. reach new audiences, whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. First of all, thank you for listening to our show. Yes, big time. Shelby, can you give us what we would call a quick self-ID? So who you are, where you are, what you do?

I'm Shelby. I'm from Philadelphia, and I am a geographic information systems analyst. Tell us why you were inspired to write to us. Yeah, okay. So blockchain, crypto, it's weird stuff that a lot of people have a lot of feelings about. I'll also caveat that I write to podcasts I listen to semi often. That's why you're a true gem. Yeah, I love that. I'm going to a true gem right there. Usually just get like stock replies that are like, thank you for listening.

So this was a really exciting one. Well, also, it proves we're not special, Amory, so remember that. Yeah. No, she writes to, she's writing to another podcast right after this. Yeah. All right, cool, cool, cool. But yeah, so, so I'll preface my setting of where I am. This bookshelf is full of Pokemon cards, and the floor next to it is Pokemon cards.

Whoa. And there's some other cards, but it's mostly Pokemon cards. It's a lot of, it's thousands of dollars of Pokemon cards. Okay. What's your coolest? I don't know anything about Pokemon, but what's the coolest? What's your most valuable Pokemon card? I have, so the thing is, I've been, you know, I started collecting Pokemon cards and I was a kid.

So I have like the old ones. I don't have any, I don't have any grade 10 holographic first edition Charzards, unfortunately. What about a jiggly puff? I've got plenty of jiggly puffs. Okay. Got some of those. But I, yeah, so I just, you know, Pandemic started. I basically got my like first like permanent adult job post grad school

during the pandemic. So I found myself with a level of income that I'd never had before in my life and decided to get back into, um, card collecting. Yeah. So, you know, so like I said, I got into the Pokemon cards and then there's like a bunch of online TCG games. TCG is trading card game. Oh, okay. I'm going to ask you to, if you don't mind, to just read us the email that you sent us. Okay. I can do that. All right.

Okay. Hey, endless thread. I'm a big fan of the show and I was really tickled by the episode about the waterfalls in the cat skills. It felt very nostalgic for me personally. Also want to say that I appreciate the relatively neutral way that you all have been talking about crypto. and I wanted to bring up two perspectives that I assume you've come across in your research but weren't really touched on at all in the show. I also want to preface both of these with some info about myself. I'm 27 years old.

I use she they pronouns. I'm kind of far left politically, proponent of socialism into punk rock. I have two cats and I have a master's degree related to environmental stuff. I hate money, but we live in a society and money exists. and I doubt capitalism is going anywhere anytime soon. One of the most predatory industries these days and an industry that I'm heavily entrenched in as a consumer is the video game industry.

From micro-transactions in mobile games to skins in first-person shooters to digital trading cards for Magic the Gathering, gamers are trading money for assets that they do not actually own. I've personally spent hundreds of dollars on Pokemon Go, and if I were to try selling Pokemon, I've caught for real money, my account would be banned. I think that one of the best use cases for blockchain, both cryptocurrency and NFTs, is in the video games sphere. A lot of people are strongly

against this idea because they're thinking about NFTs and video games as an extension of microtransactions, but I view it more as a power to the player alternative to them. In the real world, when I buy Pokemon cards, I own those. I can sell them to other collectors, and that's 100% allowed and appropriate and even encouraged. But in Magic the Gathering Arena, which is the game's online alternative, selling cards is a banable offense. God's Unchained is an example of a blockchain card game

that uses NFTs, which is similar than Magic the Gathering Arena, where players can either buy using real money or Ethereum, card packs, and you can even win them completely for free just by playing the game. And they're not crazy prices. They're like $3 a pack. and most cards you get will sell for 10 cents each.

If you're lucky, you may get some that sell for $10, $50, or even a couple hundred. And it's basically a one-to-one price point as it is in Magic the Gathering, Pokemon cards, or any other real-life trading card game. The TLPR for that was that blockchain can partially eliminate exit costs to gaming and players can sell their assets when they're done with the game, just like with real-life games. It also potentially offers a return on investment that usually is reserved for high-level Twitch streamers.

Then I want to talk about proof of stake, which is thought to be a crypto thing that is like low environmental impact. So the other much more contested issue is the environmental impact of crypto. The proof of work model is bad and expensive. I agree 100%. But more blockchain. are switching or coming around based on a proof of stake method, which as far as I know, and I'm not an expert,

but I have read a fair bit about it, is not much more carbon-intensive than sort of any other electronic online service, like Twitter or Reddit. There's also like there's a blockchain called Wax, where a lot of people will use, they'll do sell a lot of like cheap NFTs and stuff. I'm put a little plug here. My friend Crypto Flash sells some really cool art.

NFTs for like $4 a pop and they're they're not those crazy million dollar art things. They're just like fun little snippets to support an artist. You know, Wax uses proof of stake and Ethereum just did a big migration over to the proof of stake method as well. And I think that it's something that's overlooked a lot while people are largely focused talking about, you know, the OG. They're talking about Bitcoin and its impact. I think it's one of the least interesting blockchains in the space because,

people don't use it for anything except lots of money and money is boring. Anyway, that's the email. Well done. Shelby, don't ever stop writing emails to podcasts. That's my suggestion. Never stop. I also love that the subject line was crypto thoughts from a normal person, in parentheses, I swear.

Yeah, that's how I try to preface it. I'm like, you know, I'm like the type of person that's usually very anti-crypto. And I just think if people could like learn a little bit more about it, they'd, you know, maybe have some different thoughts. Shelby, I love that. Thank you very much. Please don't allow Pokemon cards to completely take over your 700 square foot house, unless you want that.

We're moving to a bigger house soon. Oh, okay. Oh, there you go. Just because you needed more space for Pokemon cards, right? You had to get a big... That's the only reason. Yeah. We're going to need a bigger...

You're the only reason. Thanks, y'all. Thanks for listening to our crypto series. And write to us. Write us the emails. Yeah. Yeah. Love to hear from you.

Yeah. All right. Talk to you next week. Goodbye.