The "identification face change" of Crypto Assets

Author: Matti Source: Wrong A Lot

“Major advances in civilization are achieved in the process of almost overturning the society in which they occur.” — A.N. Whitehead

Face changing

“Face/Off” is a classic film from the 1990s that tells the story of FBI agent Sean Archer undergoing an experimental face-swapping surgery to impersonate the notorious criminal Castor Troy in order to thwart a terrorist plot. However, when Castor wakes up and assumes Archer's identity, a high-stakes game of cat and mouse ensues. Everyone is trapped in each other's bodies, struggling to reclaim their own lives while having to navigate the other's existence.

When Sean Archer and Castor Troy swap faces and subsequently their lives, they concretely embody the existential dilemma of becoming the “other.” Archer struggles with the chaotic freedom brought about by Troy's villainous deeds, while Troy revels in the seemingly orderly facade of Archer's family life.

This reversal of identity suggests that identity is performative, shaped by environment and choice rather than intrinsic essence, blurring the lines between good and evil, as everyone must confront their inner shadow self, ultimately implying that revenge and redemption are two sides of the same coin.

The interchangeable faces represent a deceptive shadow that conceals a deeper truth; the journey of the characters forces people to reflect on authenticity versus appearance, highlighting how social roles, personal trauma, and ambition can imprison the soul.

All roles imposed by norms are cages that tame human will. However, they provide stability for the functioning of society. The process of will breaking free from constraints, causing chaos, and then re-establishing stability is just a matter of time.

Tools: Identity Crisis in the Crypto Space

I am starting to believe that technology is the matrix in which society plays out. Technology creates a largely invisible environment, a network, much like a theater that has its own physical rules and more abstract ones.

My initial exposure to the crypto space was when I read the Ethereum white paper in 2016. For me, this represented a fundamental shift in how human society governs itself. Later, I read Nick Szabo's thoughts on social scalability, which comprehensively summarized my fragmented ideas.

In today's discussion, blockchain is simplified as a database solution, while trust minimization is seen as an ideology. Everyone is chasing money, but in this case, money leads to a dead end. We are slowly eroding the demand for trust minimization, first for performance, then for use cases, and ultimately to cater to any purchasing willingness from governments and companies.

If cryptocurrency were a character in a movie, it would be the story of a tech-anarchist drug dealer who goes through a career as a cocaine-addicted Wall Street trader, transforms into a tech founder, and ultimately becomes a board member at JPMorgan, spending summers in the Hamptons.

The two main memes in the current cryptocurrency space summarize this sentiment. The first is “believe in something,” which essentially reflects that cryptocurrencies cannot have a definite outlook on what they want to achieve. “Something” should be understood as “nothing.” Price is the only thing that matters.

The second meme * “Pragmatism First.” Centralized chains, single sorters, performance optimization, compliance with regulations, etc. Pragmatism is slowly eroding the true unique selling point of cryptocurrency—trust minimization, thus achieving social scalability. In other words, it means reducing reliance on trusted third parties.

This revolution seems to really be devouring its children. The early revolutionaries have become too wealthy to pay attention, and today they remind people of the bankers they once rebelled against. The theme of 2021 was about the alternative financial track for France's future, while the theme of 2025 has turned into packaging trust-minimizing machines as trust-maximizing tools and looking for someone willing to pay for a bunch of worthless promises.

Indeed, all of this is a game of trade-offs. One cannot be a dogmatic advocate of decentralization, as that is unrealistic and almost impossible to commercialize. When the pendulum swings too far towards centralization, people should realize that the entire meaning has disappeared, and we are peddling a financialized void. In other words, the financialization of finance. Profit for the sake of profit.

Cryptocurrency is characterized as a tool for speculation, an ultra-financialized means. However, cryptocurrency is not merely a tool; understanding it this way is a significant misconception. Cryptocurrency is an ecosystem.

Returning to the first paragraph of this section, the matrix played out in society has already been changed, and there is no turning back.

Environment: Electronic Drama

Cryptocurrency will inevitably consume everything we think gives it existence. It is not a tool—“a stock on the chain.” It is a completely, absolutely new environment. It is an extension and transformation of the market, an invisible environment in which we participate. I will quote McLuhan's viewpoint to illustrate this:

“The interaction between the new and old environments has created many problems and chaos. The main obstacle to clearly understanding the effects of new media is our deep-rooted habit of viewing all phenomena from a fixed perspective.”

McLuhan foresaw as early as the 1960s that print technology created the public, while electronic technology created the masses. He understood that the invisible environment was changing, and society would change accordingly, but he pointed out that the official culture was trying to force new media to do the work of old media.

We cannot expect those individuals and power institutions whose existence relies on the comfortable operation of old processes to see the essence of the new environment or understand its nature.

“Poets, artists, detectives—those who sharpen our perception are often antisocial; they rarely 'adapt well' and cannot go with the flow. There exists a peculiar connection among antisocial types, namely, they have the ability to see the true nature of their environment. This need for interaction, to counter the environment with some form of antisocial force, is exemplified in the famous story 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' The 'well-adapted' ministers, having vested interests, see the emperor dressed in finery. Meanwhile, the 'antisocial' child, unaccustomed to the old environment, sees clearly that the emperor is 'wearing nothing at all.' The new environment is clear to him.”

Thus, cryptocurrencies find themselves caught in a conscious, futile attempt at integration, while unconsciously, they have already given birth to a new world that people are slowly but surely choosing to enter. While the entire industry is busy funding machines that comply with the old order, a few users are quietly expressing dissent, living according to the rules of new media.

“Young people instinctively understand the current environment - electronic theater. They live in myth and depth. This is the reason for the huge gap between generations. Wars, revolutions, and civil uprisings are all interfaces created in the new environment of electronic information media.”

The true adoption of cryptocurrency does not come from optimization. It stems from the desire to participate. Anyone can become a banker, and we can also argue about the boundaries that distinguish banks from exit scams and bankers from exit scam developers.

In the field of the internet, especially cryptocurrency, the education process has shifted from “packaging” to “discovery.” Guidance is no longer important; manuals have become obsolete. McLuhan suggested that people reject goals and yearn to play roles. They crave a sense of participation. If this was true in the 1960s, it is even more so today.

“Our technology forces us to live in a mythical way, yet we still think in a fragmented, singular, and separate manner. Myth means placing oneself within the audience, within the environment…”

The Truth of Face Changing (Face/On)

In the spirit of “Face Changing,” cryptocurrency is facing its own identity crisis. The truly trust-minimized environment that enhances social scalability is being challenged by widespread pragmatism or price behavior, which reduces it to merely a financial instrument.

Just as Sean Archer and Castor Troy were forced to live in each other's worlds, cryptocurrency pioneers are now struggling against the very systems they are trying to disrupt, often adopting centralized and trust-maximizing tendencies, which precisely deprives them of their true essence and unique selling points.

The tension between cryptocurrency as an environment and as a tool reflects the film's core themes: authenticity versus appearance, and the blurred lines between revolution and assimilation. This is the “deceptive shadow” that conceals the deeper truth of cryptocurrency, just as the interchangeable faces in “Face/Off” obscure their true identities underneath.

However, as McLuhan described, the “electronic theater” of cryptocurrency continues to unfold beyond attempts to forcibly integrate it into old paradigms. While official culture (including a large part of the crypto industry itself) struggles to make new media perform the functions of old media, a small number of users are unconsciously and quietly dissenting, choosing to enter a new world built on different rules.

These people are those “antisocial brats” who are not accustomed to the old environment and may have already noticed that the emperor “is wearing nothing at all.” They represent the participation and investment that drive the true adoption of cryptocurrency. They refuse mere optimization and instead choose a new mythic interaction with the internet universe available for people's use.

Ultimately, the choice of cryptocurrency, like the choices of Archer and Troy, is about confronting reality and embracing its transformative power. It concerns understanding that cryptocurrency is not just “stocks on the chain” or a database solution, but a fundamental change to the social fabric.

A brand new environment for survival, thinking, creation, and participation.