TechScape: They used my identity to flog a doomed cryptocurrency – and then things got weird
In this week's newsletter: When I was sent DMs asking for advice about Tsuka, a new coin I was supposedly involved in, I could never have expected what happened next
On Monday morning I woke up to a pair of odd DMs on Twitter. Sir, Greetings, Do you have any information about Dejitaru Tsuka token," asked one Dr. Joker"; another had a similar question: Yo dude what do you know about Tsuka."
I'd not heard about the cryptocurrency, and a quick scan suggested it wasn't worth my time: it was a classic shitcoin", a newly created token with no reason for existence beyond buying low and selling high.
If the idea of shitcoins as a big multiplayer video game intrigues you, I've just finished reading Adrian Hon's book You've Been Played, which goes into some detail on the same idea. Every major social trend takes on the characteristics of an alternate reality game" these days, from QAnon to Crypto, and it's having a deeply weird effect on our societal fabric.
My shitcoin adventure was mostly Telegram-led, but Discord is probably the more important social network for the crypto space, and guess what: it's full of scammers.
Remember Terra, the stablecoin" that was anything but? It relaunched, and immediately collapsed. Also, in case it wasn't obvious, the initial failure wasn't the outcome of a deliberate attack, but simply a bad idea that finally broke. But it still ruined lives.
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