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Welcome to the dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver and I'm broadcasting

from Providence, Rhode Island. What is cryptocurrency? And is it really currency? Or maybe instead,

is it a speculative asset symptomatic of everything wrong with neoliberal financialized capitalism

as we charge headlong and climate catastrophe in the absence of a communist horizon? What is

blockchain? What are NFTs and how are people selling so-called real estate in the so-called

metaverse? Why are promoters of cryptocurrency committed to such a techno-utopian vision

when their own crypto reality is so crassly corrupt and profiteering? Why does cryptocurrency

mining use a nation-state's worth of energy? How does cryptocurrency have a total market capitalization

of more than two trillion dollars? And how does person of the year Elon Musk fit into it all?

I have been intrigued and deeply disturbed by cryptocurrency for years and wanted answer to all

of these questions and more. This is part one of the two-part dig series on cryptocurrency that you

and I have all been waiting for. My interview with journalists Edward on Wayso Junior and Jacob

...