RODRIGO AZAOLA

A Little Better

'A little better' is the result of a six months research of cryptocurrency trading in instant messaging platforms. For millennia, currencies were backed by physical assets until 1971, when Richard Nixon announced the end of the U.S. dollar backed by gold reserves. Since then, the value of all world currencies is entrusted to promises made by state authorities and central banks. 

For first time in history, cryptocurrency allows the creation and transfer of wealth within decentralized trustless systems. Nevertheless, the value of cryptocurrencies is still arbitrary, ephemeral, irrational, and yet, it establishes a common belief in which trust and value is now legitimized by cryptographical algorithms and global microcommunities instead of governments or banks. 

Weeks before Nixon terminated the gold standard, he was secretly recorded talking about the economy. In a moment of brutal honesty or perhaps self-delusion he admitted: “We are just running the chaos a little better”. Almost half a century later, the rise of cryptocurrencies may be fueled by delusional thinking and hope. It makes sense to ask if it's sustainable, even rational. Perhaps not. But, still today, neither is world economy.