Badlands Unlimited presents What is Crypto?

Cryptocurrency has been the subject of fierce debate since 2017. Bitcoin, Ethererum, and other peer-to-peer digital cash systems that make up the cryptocurrency ecosystem today claim to hold the potential to revolutionize the very nature of global economics by decentralizing how money and value are exchanged. Mainstream economists, institutional banks, and governments (in particular U.S. and China), have attacked crypto in words and in deeds. The scrutiny and interest in crypto has made it a lively and future-directed subject of discussion in an otherwise dismal political and cultural year.

The program includes a short presentation on the basics of crypto: its history, technology, and current application in the field of finance and beyond. Maya Binyam and Grayson Earle, co-founders of Bail Bloc, will talk about how their app redirects a small portion of your computer's unused processing power to post bail for low-income people detained in the Bronx and in Queens. Followed by a Q+A with Badlands Crypto Group (Miriam Katzeff, Meredith Finkelstein, and Paul Pham) and Bail Bloc.

Paul Chan founded the independent press Badlands Unlimited in 2010.

Maya Binyam is a writer living in New York. She is on the editorial staff of The New Inquiry and The Paris Review.

Grayson Earle articulates a repositioning of resistance to power that invites participation from a mass audience. He teaches Emerging Technology at the New York City College of Technology.