The TLDR here is that this piece has little directly to do with cryptocurrencies. But it happens to sit at a weird intersection of stuff I happen to be interested in.

So here goes: Affect theory says how we feel explains what we do. That’s what explains populist/popular movements like Occupy, Trump supporters, and other loosely organised, mass movements that all seem to originate on the internet before meta sizing beyond the network.

Affect and politics could also be what explains the popular appeal and the movement behind cryptocurrencies. It could also explain why crypto proponents are particularly resistant to criticism: a surgical takedown of bitcoin’s monetary policy problems matters less than how stateless coins make its proponents feel.

Anyway, my previous snippet got lost on the WiFi, so this is a rather disjointed recollection of it. And this is my summary of the day.

Again, the popularity of cryptocurrecies might be understood in terms of these other, popuist/popular, movements as well. Movements formed as a reaction to something.

Per the notation below, this might describe what the crypto world is all about. Less about monetary policy—more about how monetary policy makes them feel.

🔗 The theoretical schools around affect )are interesting rabbit holes to explore here, with apologies to my postgraduate lecturers!

This particular line resonates with what happens in Crypto-land, I think. For a couple of reasons: Crypto-land itself is largely constituted of online interactions. Secondly, crypto-land is nothing if not overflowing with a “surplus of emotionality”. Perhaps this is why we see an overlap of communities interested in Trumpian politics and ideas, and cryptocurrencies. They might be interested or attracted to the same thing: how these subjects make them feel.

🔗 Brian Massumi has much to say about politics and affect. His idea is that the pre-emptive policies of post-9/11 counter-terrorism creates an atmosphere of “low-lying fear”—an affect of terror.

This is probably the clearest and most pithy description of a "token curated registry" I have read. And I tried very hard to explain the concept in articles like this one, about Civil.

🔗 Here's the canonical thing on TCRs, by Mike Goldin.

Not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this mean the number of transactions that a blockchain-powered network can process is equivalent to the number of transactions that the slowest node in the network can process? If so, I haven't heard such limitation.

This is easily the most interesting sentence in the paper: Turing used Bayesian analysis for code-breaking during WWII.