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PODCAST

The Blockchain Socialist

The Blockchain Socialist

A podcast by The Blockchain Socialist (@TBSocialist) giving a platform for those at the intersection of blockchain and Left politics.Subscribe to the Patreon to get access to bonus content and support my work: https://www.patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist

technology

All Episodes

59:33

Crypto and Stablecoins in Tanzania w/ Victor Muhagachi

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/04/02

I spoke to Victor Muhagachi, co-founder of NEDA Labs, building digital asset payment infrastructure in Tanzania and East Africa, about what it actually looks like to bring crypto to communities in this context. Victor grew up watching mobile money transform how people transact across Africa but also watching 15-20% of people's money disappear just in the act of digitizing it. We dig into NEDA Labs work on Tanzanian Shilling stablecoin rails and the experience of talking to regulators. We...

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42:56

Why he left crypto for AI w/ Nader Dabit

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/03/24

I spoke to Nader Dabit, longtime crypto developer and educator who built at Aave, Lens, and Developer DAO, about what it felt like to be at the frontier of Web3 and why he eventually left. Nader spent years genuinely believing in decentralized social and censorship resistant platforms, and we dig into why those ideas haven't found their footing: the brutal difficulty of onboarding people, a culture that kept rewarding hype over substance, and watching the space forgive grifters over and over ...

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63:12

Collective action strategies in the age of AI w/ Nick...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/03/04

I spoke to Nick Vincent, assistant professor of computing science at Simon Fraser University and author of the Data Leverage substack, about what it actually means that AI systems are built on the collective output of humanity's digital labor and what we can do about it. Nick has spent years researching how data functions as a bargaining tool, and we get into the nitty gritty of what that looks like in practice: data strikes, data poisoning, and redirecting your data to competitors as forms o...

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48:49

Delete Coinbase! Use this instead... w/ UnhappyBen...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/02/23

I spoke to UnhappyBen, head of growth and marketing at Peer (formerly known as ZKP2P) which is a service that allows you to officially delete Coinbase and every other centralized exchange account you may have. Peer is protocol that allows people to do P2P trading of crypto assets and fiat through neobanks like Revolut, Venmo, Wise, etc. while providing a high degree of privacy using zero knowledge proofs. In case you didn't see it, I spoke about the solution in a recent video of mine where I ...

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54:23

Public or Perish: Decentralized Municipal Socialism...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/02/15

I spoke to Boris Mamlyuk, co-founder of Clean App an AI-powered, crowdsourced environmental app designed for users to report waste and hazards in real-time, essentially a system for reporting civic feedback. I had him on to talk about the app which boasts over 1 million installs, his critique of the crypto libertarian project's capture by Wall Street interests, and how decentralized technologies can strengthen the civic sphere against both state surveillance and corporate data monopolie...

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75:43

What if AI was Cooperative instead? w/ Tan Zhi Xuan

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/02/05

I spoke to Tan Zhi Xuan, Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore's Department of Computer Science and founder of the Cooperative Intelligence and Systems Lab, a research group confronting the gap between the rationalist AI alignment discourse focused on superintelligence and what is actually happening. I had her on to talk about her work on cooperative AI (designing AI systems and institutions that promote beneficial cooperation among AI-empowered actors rather than confli...

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36:14

Did we learn anything from Anonymous? w/ Kate...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/01/27

Continuing the publication of interviews from DevConnect in Buenos Aires, I sat down with Kate Stapleton, a former member of Anonymous and privacy advocate, now able to speak publicly after the statute of limitations expired. In this interview, Kate recounts the origins of Anonymous in early internet culture, IRC, and the Church of Scientology protests, while challenging the myth of Anonymous as a single unified movement. For safety and clarity, she does not reveal her former online handles, ...

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28:34

Why did Democracy fail in DAOs? w/ Theo Beutel |...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/01/19

Continuing the publication of interviews from DevConnect in Buenos Aires, I sat down with Theo Beutel (academic secretariat at the Ethereum Foundation, researcher at Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau, University of Zurich) to reflect on attempts at democracy with DAOs. As someone who has worked as the governance lead at several DAOs, Theo had a lot of insight to share. We discussed his recent paper Digital Democracy in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, the role of academia in Ethereum ...

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56:31

Is Crypto Governance Dead? w/ Eugene Leventhal |...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2026/01/12

In this episode recorded at DevConnect in Buenos Aires, I sit down with Eugene Leventhal (researcher at Metagov, podcaster at Governance Futures, new head of governance at Octant) to discuss the current crisis in crypto governance. The general feeling is that governance has been declared dead, foundations are being pushed aside, and the decentralization theater is being abandoned now that Trump's election has lifted compliance pressure. Eugene unpacks what he calls the "original sin of DAOs" ...

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16:10

How to send cryptocurrency to Gaza

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/12/22

Note that this is from a video essay published on YouTube here. For over a year, I've been helping people send aid to Gaza via cryptocurrency because traditional banking systems have failed Palestinians. PayPal and GoFundMe freeze accounts, banks block transfers, and those that go through can take weeks or months. Cryptocurrency offers instant, censorship-resistant transfers that offer higher guarantees. This comprehensive guide covers three methods for sending crypto (SimpleSwap, Revolut, an...

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66:30

Is the state DEAD? Farewell to Westphalia with Jarrad...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/11/23

In this episode I spoke to Jarrad Hope, founder of Logos, and Peter Ludlow, philosopher and research advisor at the University of Hong Kong, and co-authors of the new book 'Farewell to Westphalia.' In the book they detail the historical trajectory of nation states and what they perceive to be their failures as well as propose an alternative to Network States through Blockchain Communities. We discuss critiques of traditional nation states, the potential of blockchain for decentralized govern...

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66:39

Free Markets Are Planned: The Neoliberal Paradox with...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/11/20

Dr. Christoph Sorg is a social scientist at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He researches theories of capitalism and post-capitalism and the new debate on economic planning in times of digitalization and the climate crisis. During the interview we spoke about his work around understanding economic planning and his recent publication Finance as a form of economic planning. His work shows how even in the free market capitalism we live in today, there is actually a significant amount of...

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99:07

Weaponized Design and the Digital Identity Event...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/10/21

I spoke to Cade Diehm, Head of Research at the World Ethical Data Foundation and founder of New Design Congress, an independent research group confronting the gap between what is said to be happening and what is actually happening in digital societies. His career also involves working at Deloitte Australia, as leading design for CoinJar, the largest crypto exchange in Australia and Tactical Tech. I had him on to talk about his work on Weaponised Design (when an interface or system harms...

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60:13

Nepal, DAOs and Secret Voting with Aragon CEO Leuts.eth

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/09/24

I spoke to Leuts.eth, CEO of Aragon, a DAO tooling protocol that gives organizations the tools to build, govern, and accrue value effectively onchain. Aragon was probably the first organization I became interested when I got into crypto since they were the first to take seriously the potential for DAOs and onchain governance, We spoke about the history of Aragon, their latest feature enabling private voting and whether Nepal is actually a DAO now. This episode is sponsored by NYM, the world's...

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98:02

NETWORKED REALISM: Whoever Controls the...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/08/28

It's feeling like we're living in a very strange moment in time where liberal norms of openness have been shattered by the same class of tech industry titans who expressed these values just a decade ago. In this episode I spoke to Nick Houde and Severin Matusek from co-matter, a research and strategy studio based in Berlin, who recently published an incredible memo that is chock full of incredible analysis and insight into our current moment. "New World Order: The Return of Hard Power and Sof...

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17:21

Slavoj Zizek on Network States

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/08/17

The one and only Slavoj Zizek published a piece on Network States and of course I had to read it and share it with you all. It's normally behind a paywall on his Substack but was put on Fileverse by recent guest Naomi for all to read. Check out the article on Fileverse here. I really want to know who is in Zizek's ear talking about crypto stuff so much that he knows what DAOs are... If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find cont...

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65:23

How Urbit Failed with Adina Glickstein

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/08/08

In this episode, I talk with Adina Glickstein — Master’s student in Media Studies under Nathan Schneider at UC Boulder and editor-at-large at Spike Art Magazine — whose recent Compact Mag article, The Rise and Fall of Urbit finally gave me the excuse to talk about Urbit on the podcast and why its failing. We unpack what Urbit is trying to be (although many don't seem to agree), its creator Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug, philosopher of the alt-right), and how its governance structure mirr...

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51:16

Free Market Friends with Naomi Oba

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/08/01

About a month ago I spoke at Dappcon about Solidarity Primitives we've been building at Bread Cooperative. Before my talk, Naomi Oba gave her own wonderful presentation titled Crypto Culture and its Discontents that unknowingly set the stage quite well for mine so I had to ask her on the podcast. We discussed the issues with crypto culture including obsession with quantification and financialization, and how to feel emotions instead. Naomi also helped write the Sapphire Punk manifesto, ...

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75:41

Holonym: Digital Identity without Scanning your Eyeballs

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/05/24

They say on the internet no one knows you're a dog but this has created a digital space that is dominated by more bots than humans and crypto space that is easily sybil attacked. Worldcoin, a project led by Sam Altman, is purporting to tackle this issue as AI (ironic?) proliferates content by scanning our eyeballs into an orb that they totally aren't taking your data from! Personally I don't trust them. So I spoke to Shady El Damaty, co-founder and CEO of Holonym Foundation which is building...

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59:34

Blockchain Governance: North Korea, Tornado Cash, and...

The Blockchain Socialist ·

2025/05/04

How can digital cash truly be “trustless”? What does it mean that blockchain offers a new paradigm of the “rule of code”? How are decisions made when a blockchain system faces an emergency, and who gets to make those decisions? I spoke to Wessel Reijers and Morshed Mannan, both great thinkers and recent authors of the book Blockchain Governance (by Primavera De Filippi, Wessel Reijers and Morshed Mannan). We discussed the history of the legal and philosophical implications that bl...

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183 results

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