NFT
In an unwaveringly cringeworthy interview with Forbes, Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian made the declare that because of the traumatic struggling his household endured throughout the Armenian Genocide, he’s determined to take a position hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into NFTs.
“Even when all this experiment produces is a mechanism that sufficient individuals consider in to have the ability to take some notion of possession or worth… that looks like a win,” he mentioned, vaguely. However let’s be actual, Alex, you’re shopping for NFTs since you like them and wish to generate income, to not create any genocide-related security mechanisms.
The article makes positive to constantly body Ohanian as hyper-wealthy, hyper-successful, and completely ‘in it for the tech.’ He owns a whole bunch, if not 1000’s of NFTs, an organization constructing its personal metaverse, and has offered hundreds of thousands in Coinbase inventory. Nevertheless, once we get right down to brass tacks, Ohanian’s costly gestures have little-to-nothing to do with the traumatic historical past of the Armenian diaspora.
Custody, seizures, and bullshit
One of the crucial necessary factors within the Forbes article is discovered close to the top and is said in such a means as to recommend that Ohanian isn’t fully stuffed with shit.
“To adjust to regulatory necessities, [Ohanian’s company] shops its digital belongings at two… third-party custodians… As soon as belongings are underneath management of third events… the investments are not resistant to seizure.” Bingo.
So, whereas Ohanian is blissful to publicly focus on how NFTs are just like the Armenian rugs that had been stolen from his ancestors by the Turks however are non-seizable, he’s mendacity. In actual fact, a lot of the digital belongings he controls are saved in such a means that they’re completely in a position to be seized — and this in fact doesn’t even bear in mind the basic ‘$5 wrench assault’ that self-custody advocates always warn about (a violent assault the place a mark is threatened with torture or loss of life until they provide up their personal keys).
Learn extra: NFT whale down hundreds of thousands after farming Blur tokens with Bored Apes
Let’s not use genocides as a shopping for alternative, thanks
I come from a line of Ashkenazi Jews who had been pressured to flee Russia due to persecution and might say matter-of-factly that the absurd collectibles I purchase and the gold and silver I personal and cherish don’t have anything to do with my familial historical past. I purchase them as a result of I like fairly, shiny issues.
I’m not going to spend 500 phrases attempting to persuade you that I’ve purchased gold cash of stoats and silver glow-in-the-dark UFO cash as a result of I can self-custody them and guarantee they aren’t seized. Why not? As a result of I’d be mendacity to you.
When Alex Ohanian means that he’s spending a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on NFTs and the metaverse due to the Armenian Genocide, don’t take it with a grain of salt, take it with a mountain of salt. The mixed internet value of Ohanian and his spouse, tennis phenom Serena Williams, is roughly $300 million — they’re doing this and publicizing it to make that money pie greater, to not defend the generational wealth of households fleeing loss of life and destruction.
