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Protocol Town Hall with Yancey Strickler | When the Means Justify the Ends

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Protocol Town Hall with Yancey Strickler | When the Means Justify the Ends
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Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter, recounts Metalabel's two-year journey building crypto-based infrastructure for creative 'culture labels' inspired by punk record labels and the Royal Society, and how repeated crises (the Gitcoin/Vitalik NFT frenzy, Pepe coin gas spikes, and a wallet drain) led the team to go on a 'crypto diet' and ultimately launch Metalabel with zero blockchains underneath, borrowing crypto's values (decentralized identifiers, open data, shared financial outcomes) while prioritizing end-user experience over ideological means. He argues crypto culture often lets 'the means justify the ends,' making it a poor 'major' but potentially a good 'minor' within a broader post-platform, protocol-literate design space, a point Venkatesh Rao extends with his 'brains, trains, and vibes-mobiles' metaphor.

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crypto-diet-climbing-out-of-the-rabbit-holeculture-labels-metalabeldecentralized-identifiers-and-portable-identityguest-talksmeans-vs-ends-in-protocol-designprotocol-watchingprotocolstechnologyvibes-mobiles-vs-trains-and-planes

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