Yesterday, in Status and the Nation State, I was inspired by the article Status as a Service. Given how long it was (and, tbh, how rushed I was when I wrote it), I don’t feel like I did the 51 page essay justice in my post.

That’s probably not going to change today, but I did want to reflect on one of the last lines in the whole, where Wei writes:

If we think of these networks as marketplaces trading only in information, and not in status, then we’re only seeing part of the machine.

In all of our talk about Web3, NFTs, crypto, DeFi, etc., we still spend a LOT of time talking about the technology itself. That is, I suppose, not uncommon at this stage of the innovation cycle. The tech is just awesome and I love it. What’s more, the discipline of cryptoeconomics is awesome and I love it as well.

But these networks are not going to operate themselves. While there will be some networks down the line that are probably 100% or nearly 100% powered, serviced, and supporting AIs, for now, these networks require people.

People are, what some in the industry call, “Layer 0.”

And “Layer 0” of a network is really the only thing that can’t be replicated.

You can take the code and fork it. You can copy of the governance structure. You can pretty much steal the IP of anyone else out there, but you can’t steal the hearts and minds of the community.

Which, in a weird way, makes crypto networks the ultimate in populist movements.

I am of the belief that we are still very much in the super early part of this financial system overhaul and that today’s leaders are not necessarily tomorrow’s leaders.

Naturally, that may be wishful thinking on my part, seeing as I have some Radix skin in this game, but given how much hassle it was just to get the a BTC address off a Ledger (had to update Ledger Live, then update Ledger firmware, then reinstall apps…and this was all after I had to find the “right” type of USB cable), I feel like I can safely say, it’s early.

So, why does that matter?

It matters because we have created these “things” which are, essentially, organisms that grown and manifest themselves in new ways. These “things” are crypto networks, but we (and I certainly do this) tend to overemphasize the “crypto” part at the expense of the “network” part.

“Networks” though ostensibly about machines, are about the millions of individual choices made by the people behind the machines.

Those people are, at least in Wei’s view, “status seeking monkeys” and that means that our online/digital/metaverse lives are, as Wei says, status marketplaces, where we will constantly trade our way up the status ladder.

This may be a “bridge” from one network to another or it might be acquiring “bigger” stake in another one.

My takeaway was that, not only should I not forget about the Layer 0/status element of crypto, I should put it front and center.

One day, we’ll have a way to measure/gauge the strength of Layer 0.

That’s probably something worth thinking about more.