Crypto Assets' "identity transformation"

Author: Matti Source: Wrong A Lot Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

"Major progress in civilization is achieved in the process of almost overturning the society in which it occurs." —— A.N. Whitehead

Face Changing

"Face/Off" is a classic movie from the 1990s that tells the story of FBI agent Sean Archer undergoing an experimental face transplant to impersonate the notorious criminal Castor Troy in order to thwart a terrorist plot. However, when Castor wakes up and assumes Archer's identity, a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game ensues. Everyone is trapped in each other's bodies, struggling to reclaim their own lives while having to navigate through the opponent's existence.

When Sean Archer and Castor Troy exchange faces and subsequently exchange lives, they specifically embody the existential dilemma of becoming the "other." Archer struggles within the chaotic freedom brought on by Troy's misdeeds, while Troy revels in the seemingly orderly facade of Archer's family life.

This inversion of identity suggests that identity is performative, shaped by environment and choice rather than intrinsic essence, blurring the lines between good and evil, as everyone must confront the shadow self within, ultimately implying that revenge and redemption are two sides of the same coin.

The interchangeable faces represent the deceptive shadows that mask deeper truths; the journey of the characters compels individuals to reflect on authenticity and appearance, highlighting how social roles, personal trauma, and ambition can imprison the soul.

All roles imposed by norms are cages that tame human will. However, they provide stability for the operation of society. The process of will breaking free from constraints, causing chaos, and then re-establishing stability is just a matter of time.

Tools: Identity Crisis in the Cryptocurrency Field

I have begun to believe that technology is the matrix in which society performs. Technology creates a largely invisible environment, a network, much like a theater with its own physical rules and more abstract rules.

My initial exposure to the cryptocurrency field was when I read the Ethereum white paper in 2016. For me, this was a fundamental transformation in how human society governs itself. Later, I read Nick Szabo's thoughts on social scalability, which comprehensively summarized my fragmented ideas.

In today's discussion, blockchain is simplified as a database solution, while trust minimization is seen as an ideology. Everyone is chasing money, but in this case, money has led to a dead end. We are slowly eroding the requirement for trust minimization, first for performance, then for use cases, and ultimately to cater to any purchasing willingness of governments and companies.

If cryptocurrency were a character in a movie, it would be the story of a tech anarchist drug dealer who goes through a stint as a cocaine-using Wall Street trader, transforms into a tech founder, and ultimately becomes a board member of JPMorgan, spending summers in the Hamptons.

The two main memes in the current crypto space summarize this sentiment. The first is "believe in something", which essentially reflects that cryptocurrencies cannot have a clear outlook on the goals they want to achieve. "Something" should be understood as "nothing". Price is the only thing that matters.

The second meme * "Pragmatism First" **. Centralized chains, single sequencers, performance optimizations, compliance with censorship, and so on. Pragmatism is slowly eroding the true unique selling point of cryptocurrency - trust minimization, thereby achieving social scalability. In other words, it is about reducing dependence on trusted third parties.

This revolution seems to be truly devouring its children. The early revolutionaries have become too wealthy to pay attention, and today they remind people of the bankers they once rebelled against. The theme of 2021 was about alternative financial tracks for France's future, while the theme of 2025 has turned into packaging trust-minimizing machines as trust-maximizing tools and seeking someone willing to pay for a bunch of worthless checks.

Indeed, it is all a game of trade-offs. A person cannot be a decentralized fundamentalist, as that is impractical and nearly impossible to commercialize. When the pendulum swings too far towards centralization, people should realize that the entire meaning is lost, and we are peddling a financialization of emptiness. In other words, the financialization of finance. Profit for the sake of profit.

This cryptocurrency is characterized as a tool for speculation, a hyper-financialized means. But cryptocurrency is not just a tool; understanding it this way is a tremendous misunderstanding. Cryptocurrency is an environment.

Returning to the first paragraph of this section, the matrix played out in society has already been changed, and there is no turning back.

Environment: Electronic Drama

Cryptocurrency will inevitably consume everything we think gives it existence. It is not a tool—"a stock on the chain." It is entirely, absolutely a brand new environment. It is an extension and transformation of the market, the invisible environment in which we participate. I will quote McLuhan's perspective to elaborate on this:

"The interaction between the old and new environments has created many problems and chaos. The main obstacle to clearly understanding the effects of new media is our deep-rooted habit of viewing all phenomena from a fixed perspective."

McLuhan predicted as early as the 1960s that printing technology created the public, while electronic technology created the masses. He recognized that the invisible environment was changing and society would change accordingly, but he pointed out that official culture was trying to force new media to do the work of old media.

We cannot expect individuals and power institutions that rely on the comfortable operation of old processes for their existence to see the essence of the new environment or understand its nature.

"Poets, artists, detectives—those who can sharpen our perception are often antisocial; they rarely 'adapt well' and cannot go with the flow. There is often a peculiar connection among antisocial types, namely that they have the ability to see the true nature of their environment. This need for interaction, to counter the environment with some kind of anti-social force, is reflected in the famous story "The Emperor's New Clothes." The 'well-adapted' ministers, due to their vested interests, see the emperor dressed in finery. Meanwhile, the 'anti-social' child, who is unaccustomed to the old environment, clearly sees that the emperor is 'not wearing anything at all.' The new environment is evident to him.

Thus, cryptocurrencies find themselves caught in a conscious and futile attempt at assimilation, while unconsciously, they have already given birth to a new world that people are slowly but surely choosing to enter. While the entire industry is busy funding machines that comply with the old order, a few users are quietly expressing dissent, living according to the rules of new media.

"Young people instinctively understand the current environment—electronic theater. They live in myth and depth. This is the reason for the huge gap between generations. War, revolution, civil uprisings are all interfaces in the new environment created by electronic information media."

The true adoption of cryptocurrency does not come from optimization. It stems from the desire to participate. Anyone can become a banker, and we can also debate the boundaries that distinguish banks from exit scams and bankers from exit scam developers.

In the field of the internet, especially in cryptocurrency, the education process has shifted from "packaging" to "discovery". Guidance is no longer important; manuals have become obsolete. McLuhan suggested that people reject targets and "desire to play roles." They crave a sense of participation. If this was true in the 1960s, it is even more so today.

"Our technology compels us to live in a mythic way, yet we still think in a fragmented, singular, and isolated manner. Myth means placing oneself in relation to the audience, in relation to the environment..."

The Truth About Face Changing (Face/On)

In the spirit of "Face Changing", cryptocurrency is facing its own identity crisis. The truly enhanced social scalability of a trust-minimized environment is being challenged by widespread pragmatism or price behavior, which reduces it to a mere financial instrument.

Just as Sean Archer and Castor Troy were forced to live in each other’s world, the pioneers of cryptocurrency are now battling against the systems they are trying to disrupt, often adopting a tendency towards centralization and maximizing trust, which precisely undermines their true essence and unique selling points.

The tension between cryptocurrency as an environment and as a tool reflects the core themes of the film: truth and appearance, and the blurred lines between revolution and assimilation. This is the "deceptive shadow" that conceals the deeper truths of cryptocurrency, just as the exchanged faces in "Face/Off" hide their true identities beneath.

However, as McLuhan described, the "electronic drama" of cryptocurrency continues to unfold beyond attempts to forcibly fit it into old paradigms. While the official culture (including a large part of the cryptocurrency industry itself) struggles to make new media do the work of old media, a small number of users are unconsciously and quietly expressing dissent by choosing to enter a new world built on different rules.

These people are those "antisocial brats", who are not accustomed to the old environment and may have already noticed that the emperor "is not wearing anything". They represent the participation and investment that drive the true adoption of cryptocurrency, rejecting mere optimization in favor of a new mythical interaction with the internet universe available to people.

Ultimately, the choice of cryptocurrency, like the choices of Archer and Troy, is about facing authenticity and embracing its transformative power. It is about understanding that cryptocurrency is not just "stocks on the chain" or database solutions, but a fundamental change to the fabric of society.

A brand new environment for survival, thinking, creation, and participation.