Against Crypto-Economics

​Back in the halcyon days, our crypto "industry" understood itself to have embarked upon a project of crypto-economic engineering, where coordination problems were luscious opportunities for socio-technical mechanism design -- Bitcoin's "proof-of-work" the OG example. In 2025, we find ourselves lost in a melancholic miasma of financial and cultural woes, reduced by the token-attention economy to debates over unlock schedules, cashflow metaphors, and at times a wise-but-reactionary rejection of anything that smells like a token whatsoever.

​When did we lose our sight of the toolkit right in front of us? Was crypto-economics ever great to begin with? We'll leave that judgement to future historians, but their event-chains have not yet been fully hash-linked.

​Join us in Berlin for a collective exploration of what crypto-economics could be, consisting of short presentations, park-bench panels, and plenty of opportunities for collusion on the side-lines. Formal mathematics welcome, formal attire not required.

​We follow Chatham house rule.

​SCHEDULE:

​10:00 - Talks, panels, discussions, refreshments

​18:00 - Good Byes