Hot Takes

Are cryptocurrencies all about greed? (yes)

Photo by Henley Design Studio / Unsplash

This week Binance one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency and blockchain infrastructure providers invested $200m in the venerable Forbes (and I’m not dwelling too much on the financial details, but let’s point out that a SPAC is also involved — oh my!).

Why do I write about this?

Because in 2020, Binance did sue Forbes over its reporting that “(Binance) elaborate corporate structure is designed to intentionally deceive regulators and surreptitiously profit from crypto investors in the United States.” (Quite a plain and lucid take on Binance business model if you ask me.)

But this newfound love for Forbes is not surprising, it’s the old internet/media playbook. As soon a newly fangled internet business is robust enough and starts to reach critical mass, it needs to find mainstream legitimacy. On the other side, incumbent businesses always succumb to FOMO (the fear of missing out). It’s Time Warner and AOL all over again.

This circles back to my ongoing exasperation about web3 ‘visionary’ and ‘revolutionary’ narrative: this is the late 2000s all over again except for more greed.

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