Meet Molly White, the software engineer from Mass. which goes after the crypto industry

The price of Bitcoin rose to an all-time high of almost $ 70,000 in November. Classifieds ads were displayed during the Super Bowl. Celebrities changed their Twitter profile photos to non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Some of White’s friends started quitting their traditional technology jobs to work for crypto companies.

So White, a longtime Wikipedia editor next door, began researching the technology. But the more she learned, the more she realized that crypto was marketed as something everyone should get acquainted with, despite a story full of scams, scams and predatory marketing.

“[I was] to see people being screwed over and over and over again, White said. “It was not a permanent record of what actually happened and how badly many of these projects ended.”

Her first instinct was to start writing Wikipedia articles on crypto and the related field of “web3.” But she quickly realized that Wikipedia would not be the best place for her work – among other things, it would have required her to have a neutral approach.

“I have a pretty strong opinion,” she said.

So late last year, while working full-time at HubSpot, White created a website called “Web3 Is Going Just Great.” (The name is as sarcastic as it sounds, with the longer version ending with “… and is definitely not a huge cruelty flowing lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.”) On the site, she chronicles – sometimes several times a day – bad things that happen in crypto.

“It’s a story that has become so high and pervasive, that everyone should be involved in it,” she said. “It feels like I have this obligation to talk about it.”

And others are listening.

She is regularly quoted of national news channels, was a guest speaker at Stanford University, and has advised U.S. senators, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, on blockchain and cryptocurrency.

As White has learned over the past year, criticize Crypto is not easy. In a room known for unwavering optimism and “brother culture”, she is the outspoken opponent who points out the problems.

White has been the victim of online harassment, doxxing (when private information is revealed about someone) and threats of violence. As a result, she does not share much identifying information about her family or where she lives.

White, who grew up in Maine, started editing Wikipedia around the time she was 13. “My family knew I did, and to a certain extent, my friends knew it,” she said. “It was a bit like ‘Oh, that’s one of Molly’s weird hobbies.’

Even though she started writing about her favorite bands, White now focuses on controversial views and male-dominated spaces, including right-wing extremism and “involuntary celibacy,” or incels. She has that too served on the site arbitration committee, which decides its toughest disputes.

Andrew Lih, a Wikipedia veteran who has known White since she was a teenager, said most editors concentrate on topics they are personally interested in. White, he said, tackles thing “she absolutely does not like.”

“She wants to make sure the record has the best information,” he said.

Lih credits White’s emergence to her ability to present information in a way that is digestible. On her krypton website, she writes in a concise, factual style and uses hashtags such as #yikes, #badidea and #hmm. Nor is she condescending or alarmist.

Contrary to some critics, White does not believe that all crypto is fraud. She rather believes that there has been an explosion of “real fraud projects” that downplay the risk. She worries that crypto will be cast as a “ticket to financial freedom” for people who have no money to lose.

According to data published by the Federal Trade Commission, more than 46,000 people have reported losing over $ 1 billion in crypto to fraud since the start of 2021.

Long-term, White believes Crypto is likely to exist as a niche, speculative vehicle for high risk takers.

Most would agree that regulators need to tackle crypto fraud in order for the industry to be viable. More controversial is White’s skeptical view of blockchain, crypto’s underlying technology, which has been hyped in recent years as a potential cure for problems related to internet security, privacy and financial systems.

Blockchains are public, electronic databases that are distributed over a network of computers. The technology is meant to be immutable (meaning records cannot be changed) and decentralized (meaning that data is stored across the network and not held by any central party.)

Proponents believe blockchain technology can ultimately transform everything from financial systems to social media, creating a digital world where individuals have increased control over their own data. Many refer to this blockchain-based vision as “web3.”

There has been a proliferation of venture capitalists, startups and politicians claiming its potential, including a growing cluster in Boston. Late last month, hundreds of people attended a full-day web3 summit on the top floor of MIT Media Lab, hosted by venture capitalist John Werner. It attracted industry heavyweights, including cryptographer Stuart Haber, who helped invent the blockchain.

But White does not think blockchain is revolutionary technology. Last month, she and a group of about two dozen computer scientists, researchers, and academics signed a letter to U.S. lawmakers. to express their concerns about the field. The signatories included well-known technological figures as Harvard Associate Professor and Cryptographer Bruce Schneier, Boston-based founder Miguel de Icaza and software engineer Grady Booch.

“By design, blockchain technology is ill-suited for just about any purpose currently identified as a current or potential source of public benefit,” they wrote, calling it a “solution to a problem.”

White critics say the technology is in its early stages and will get better. But she disagrees, notes that the two most popular cryptocurrencies have been around for more than a decade. She also believes blockchain, by design, contains inherent errors – such as the inability to edit or delete data – that will make it difficult to use and potentially even harmful.

Greg Raiz, CEO of Techstars Boston – as has just launched a crypto accelerator program with the Boston-based blockchain company Algorand – disagrees with White’s claim that crypto is over in its early days. In fact, he said it feels like “we’re still in the first round of this match.”

Although he does not think blockchain will be the “solution to everything”, he does not write off the potential for solving social, monetary and business problems. He added that criticism of web3 is “super healthy.”

“Any kind of unbalanced abundance towards a technology is not good,” Raiz said.

White quit her job at HubSpot in May and is recovering from a self-inflicted burnout before deciding what to do. Her website, she said, did not contribute to the decision to leave. (“This is something I do for fun,” she said.) She has taken the break to spend more time with the family, play with her pandemic puppy, and work on the second year of the vegetable and herb garden.

She does not plan to spend more time on her krypton website, but is concerned with maintaining it.

“The more informed people are,” she said, “the better off they are.”

Anissa Gardizy can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ anissagardizy8 and on Instagram @ anissagardizy.journalism.