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This is a departure from usability, but as digital currency becomes increasingly normalized, it will have a growing relationship with User Experience Design.
Cryptocurrency might have been a revolutionary tool for financial empowerment on internet message boards, but in its actual state, it’s become an accelerant for some of the problems it claimed to solve like, inequality, opacity, and monopolization.
The usual emphasis on usage in criminality, Ponzi schemes, and money laundering are well documented. The focus here is on fiscal and societal impacts that can contribute to stagflation.
Web3 is a clear move towards a privatized new digital feudal system disguised as decentralization.
Cryptocurrency and Stagflation
As a crypto holder converts tokens into cash, they reduce the available liquidity in that fiat system.
This has a few effects:
Inflation
Inflation
As the supply of fiat is withdrawn from circulation but prices continue to rise, central banks have less room to maneuver.
Class Polarization
Class Polarization
The equity class and technocrats can exchange early access to digital assets for hard assets. This is while, globally, working classes face eroding wages, higher living costs, and no access to the economy of digital capital gains.
Political and Economic Instability
Wealth disparity leads to unpredictable social upheaval, and economic stagnation.
What Is Stagflation?
Traditionally, inflation and economic growth go hand in hand. But in stagflation, you get the worst of both worlds:- Prices are rising (inflation)
- Growth is slowing or flatlining
- Jobs are scarce or wages aren’t keeping up
The Broken Promise of Decentralization
Web1 Ideals vs. the Web3 Reality
The promised “level playing field” of crypto has rapidly become an amplifier of wealth stratification. This is very similar to how the promise of Web1 has been inverted since the 90s.
The original promise of Web1:
- Open information access
- Democratized publishing
- Peer-to-peer exchange
- Empowered small business ecosystems
- Spread of democracy
The inverted promise of Web3:
- Platforms became gatekeepers
- User data became the commodity, not the product
- Small businesses are subject to advertising monopolies
- Political transparency gave way to post-truth echo chambers
- Platforms want their own currencies
- Rise of authoritarianism
Crypto and the New Digital Colonization
Monopolies are the driving force behind Web3, a realm marketed as decentralized, while investing heavily in tokenized platforms they own and control.Web3 is a clear move towards a privatized new digital feudal system disguised as decentralization.