You know? that's the first time I've heard the phrase "orange pill."

It is a bunch o'kids playing banker, except they're doing it with realreal money. They're blowing up a lot of grownups, and they're doing it in a truly florid fashion. And I think it's going to matter, and it's going to matter a lot.

There are two groups in crypto. There's the group of nerds who are into all the cool things you can do with it, and there's the group of bros who are into the fact that they bought it before you and can sell it to you for a profit. The former group has definitely taken a back seat for the past couple years, despite the fact that absolutely seismic developments are taking place. Did you know that the Federal Reserve started a central bank digital currency pilot? PBS just released a Nova about crypto that blithely points out that as far as on-chain activity, it's been Ethereum and only Ethereum for quite a while. They spend time on ridiculous energy wastage and then go "oh and Ethereum drops that by 99.95%." It's fucking boring, as most major advances are.

The latter group is anything but boring, and is 100% of the "crypto is a ponzi" "I hate NFTs" "progress bad" mentality that is absolutely the conventional wisdom right now. They need to be punished. They need their air taken away. They need to be roped into the exact same kind of stringent regulation we do with everything else that touches money, and we need to do it in 2015.

'cuz that's the thing. Ethereum delayed nine months while they sorted out regulatory. They wanted to make sure what they were doing was legal, was not going to face any headwinds, and could not be stopped by injunction once it launched so they could use their momentum to build. And that was the first and last time anybody did that. Compare and contrast with Paypal: yeah it was illegal, who cares we're rich. Uber: yeah it was illegal, who cares we're rich. AirBnB: yeah it was illegal, who cares we're rich.

I think we might have just landed at a crux where the Republicans get to beat up Democratic operatives for being shady fux. And here's the thing about being Democrats: you aren't allowed any scandals. This thing is basically Pizzagate for money except it's true. There will be a purging. It will matter.