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1. Joshua Davila:

"Over the last decade, blockchains and crypto have opened up a new terrain for political action. It is not surprising, however, that the crypto space has also become overrun by unscrupulous marketing, theft and scams. The problem is real, but it isn’t a new one. Capitalism has ruined crypto, but that shouldn’t be the end of it. Blockchain Radicals shows us how this has happened, and how to fix crypto in a way that is understandable for those who have never owned a cryptocurrency as well as those who are building their own decentralised applications. Covering everything from how Bitcoin saved WikiLeaks to decentralised finance, worker cooperatives, the environmental impact of Bitcoin and NFTs, and the crypto commons, it shows how these new tools can be used to challenge capitalism and build a better world for all of us. While crypto is often thought of as being synonymous with unbridled capitalism, Blockchain Radicals shows instead how the technology can and has been used for more radical purposes, beyond individual profit and towards collective autonomy. Joshua Dávila is an expert on blockchain technology and the creator of the The Blockchain Socialist blog and podcast."

(https://theblockchainsocialist.com/blockchain-radicals-book-announcement/)

2. David Morris:

"The book is essentially a long exploratory essay, working to flesh out Dávila’s fundamental belief in crypto as a tool for organizing non-state social and economic alliances, from mutual aid groups, to bail funds, to new models for funding technology development.

Dávila says that, up to now, he has had a much harder time pitching his peers in politics on the promise of blockchain and crypto.

“If you try and talk about crypto stuff in a left-wing forum, you’ll get banned,” he told me. “I was constantly accused of being a scammer. I assumed we could just have a grounded conversation, but I found out that wasn’t really possible.”

"Blockchain Radicals" pushes back against this sort of reductive condemnation of crypto. What’s most ironic is that these dismissals have come most often and loudly from neoliberal centrists who long to fall back into the warm embrace of institutions (such as, very recently, notoriously repressive intelligence agencies).

These centrists have seemingly spread their knee-jerk, ironically uncritical dismissal of cryptocurrency as a fraud from snout to tail as a corollary of their talent for masquerading as justice-oriented progressives—an easy enough task in the American political context. Dávila characterizes these responses to crypto, including catastrophizing about crypto’s energy usage without addressing broader systemic issues, as a liberal “moral panic.”

"Blockchain Radicals" can function partly as a deprogramming manual for those waylaid by this skewed and deceptive just-so story. Crucially, the book includes concise, workable, and open-minded introductions to basic crypto concepts like proof of work, smart contracts, non-fungible tokens. (NFTs) and distributed apps, as well as historical briefs on, for instance, the creation of Litecoin and "the DAO" hack. These are well-marked, and so easy to skip if you don’t need a refresher, but crucial for anyone who has spent years dismissing blockchains with a sneering hand-wave instead of substantive engagement."

(https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/08/03/crypto-and-the-real-meaning-of-radicalism/)

Blockchain Radicals

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