Crypto and the Kafkaesque | Opinion

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In this week’s #hearsay column, Dorian Batycka commemorates the 100th anniversary of Bohemian writer Franz Kafka’s death on June 3, 1924, and takes you on a literary journey through the crypto world’s most “Kafkaesque” moments.

Imagine a world where you are trapped in a web of baffling and illogical situations, powerless against faceless bureaucracies with omnipotent and indifferent authority. This nightmarish distortion of reality is the essence of the term “Kafkaesque”, derived from the German-speaking Bohemian writer Franz Kafka. Through seminal works such as The Trial (1914), The Castle (1922), and The Metamorphosis (1912), Kafka’s narratives have become foundational texts of modern literature, depicting heroes trapped in existential angst and futility. Strikingly, these Kafkaesque themes resonate in the chaotic and often dystopian world of cryptocurrency, where the promise of financial liberation is coincidentally often overshadowed by paradox and disappointment.

Wojak, crypto and Kafkaesque

Franz Kafka wrote The Hunger Artist in 1922 and published it in 1924; He passed away the same year from a brutal condition that left him starving to death due to complications of laryngeal tuberculosis. Kafka’s final story focuses on a professional hunger artist who fasts for long periods of time as an art form, attracting audiences fascinated by his self-imposed suffering. Despite such dedication, the hunger artist becomes increasingly marginalized and forgotten as public attention wanes, leading to his eventual death.

It’s a situation that echoes the experience of crypto’s most revered figure: wojak. In his pursuit of quick riches, the infamous McDonald’s night manager turns into an unhealthy obsession similar to gambling. Wojak constantly finds himself in a state of deep loss and disappointment, consumed by the volatile and often isolating and crippling failure of crypto trading and investing. Cheap ramen noodle packets are to working wage earners hoping to get rich off Solana meme money what hunger is to Kafka’s artist. What could be more Kafkaesque than this?

Satoshi Nakamoto Joseph K.

Personal remarks aside, let’s shift gears to revive the term “Kafkaesque” not for the wojak loser, but for Satoshi Nakamoto, the OG of crypto. In Kafka’s The Castle (1922), the protagonist K. struggles against an incomprehensible and inaccessible bureaucratic authority; Similar to Satoshi himself, Kafka speculates about the often duplicitous nature of governments, saying: “You shouldn’t believe everything the authorities say” and adding: “I have rights and I will take them.”

In The Trial, Kafka describes the arrest of the main character. “Someone must have been lying about Joseph K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but he was arrested one morning.” Here again, we are faced with the harsh reality of a system that has consequences for someone born to change it, like Satoshi and even CZ. Proposed legislation in the EU has created widespread confusion across the continent, from MiCA to the current lack of regulatory clarity regarding crypto to the regulatory confusion in the United States, where things are not going much better either way. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have also been making a U-turn on the cryptocurrency bandwagon lately.

KafkaCrypto: towards a new theory of technology and disaster

Finally, consider the idea of ​​paradox itself, perhaps the pinnacle of all Kafkaesque situations. It is based on the assumption that two seemingly different realities can be true at the same time. While cryptocurrency is designed to bypass traditional financial systems and regulatory frameworks as the market grows, so does the demand for regulation to prevent fraud, protect consumers, and ensure market stability, often under the guise of anti-money laundering (AML). ) initiatives that stand in stark contrast to privacy-focused tools like Monero or Tornado Cash.

But on top of this reality, a paradoxical situation has emerged: The ethos of the decentralized crypto world is increasingly colliding with the centralized systems that crypto claims to disrupt. Look no further than China or Russia recently announcing they will adopt central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). With omnipresent state surveillance and control, the paradoxical reality of cryptocurrency being in the hands of a tyrannical government while allowing encrypted financial freedom is truly a Kafkaesque peak.

“It is only because of their stupidity that they can be so sure of themselves,” Kafka concluded in The Trial, perhaps his most seminal work on the illusory nature of justice. This is perhaps related in some ways to the concept of effective altruism prevalent in modern echelons of crypto theory, and forms the basis of the worldview of the famous con artist Sam Bankman Fried, i.e. fraud for the greater good theory of crypto capitalism.

At its core, cryptocurrency advocates financial autonomy and individual control over one’s economic identity. But as we celebrate the centenary of Kafka’s death, it’s clear that the crypto industry has acquired many Kafkaesque qualities. From the enigmatic figure of Satoshi Nakamoto to the humble wojak, to the disturbing reality of crypto scams and the paradox of decentralization and regulation, the illusory sense of autonomy stands as a remarkable indicator of how deeply problematic crypto has been and continues to be. As Kafka once wrote:

“Every revolution evaporates, leaving behind only the mud of a new bureaucracy.”