Cryptopia's Last Hope

摘要

A YEAR AGO, Joe Lubin seemed like one of the most prescient people on the planet. Cryptocurrencies like ether were in midst of a hockey-stick ascent, and Lubin, a cofounder of the Ethereum blockchain and one of its most articulate pitchmen, was scheduled to speak at events from Davos to SXSW. At his firm's "Ethereal Summits," it was standing room only, with crowds hanging onto his every utterance, no matter how bizarre. At one event in San Francisco in October 2017, he scolded attendees for hitting their television sets and for being rude to Siri, Apples digital assistant. "We designed Ethereum to enable machines and bots to be first-class citizens," Lubin said with straight-faced sincerity as he espoused visions of decentralization, self-sovereignty and a democratized global society. "So be nice to the machines of this generation, lest some future artificial general intelligence who feels that you have been disrespectful to her ancestors decides to turn your carbon into something more useful to the future machine economy''