I've taken some free time to research some of the microcap tokens in CMC & Coingecko and came up with a small list of gems that should be on everyone's radar. I do hope everyone’s well & kicking during this Covid-19 crisis. It will pass like how we've conquered the previous pandemics. Meanwhile, do your part, & stay HOME!
I define microcap anything below 20 million market cap OR is at least 200+ in its market cap ranking and this article is solely picked out from the crypto twitter community.
For any business-related matters, you can shoot me an email here. If you're a microcap gem hunter, feel free to join us and contribute to this chat.
In no particular order, we have
1. PhoenixDAO ($PHNX)
Let me begin with a fairly low market cap that is unique and interesting. PhoenixDAO is a decentralized open-source blockchain project that was a relaunch of the Hydro Ecosystem to bring decentralization and more power back to the community. They forked the open-source Project Hydro protocols such as Identity, Security, Tokenization just to name a few. These set of protocol solutions (smart contracts) are still based on top of Ethereum to create a simpler, fairer, and more decentralized ecosystem for all.
Features of PhoenixDAO in comparison to Hydro:
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What is interesting about this project is that they're offering 6 solutions housed under a single PHNX ecosystem. Better yet, Numio is a private company in a service agreement with the foundation to enhance the ecosystem whilst implementing PHNX tokens into their DeFi products (Pay & Vault). Read more about the agreement here.
Here is where it becomes even more interesting. PHNX inherited the identity management and aggregation framework on the Ethereum blockchain called ERC-1484, which allows gas-less or feeless transactions using the method called Meta transactions within their dApps. This is made possible through meta-transactions of the ERC-1484. Now, with this technology, companies like Numio can build dApps that send money, at competitive fees, anywhere in the world which should be available in the iOS app store and the Android store.
The PhoenixDAO will feature voting rights, staking mechanism, dApp store, community proposals & other incentives. This translates to giving the community the power to decide where the foundation should head while maintaining a decentralized ecosystem. To dive deeper into the Phoenix DAO, read this comprehensive & first look into it! Imagine getting in early on MKR & KNC, this alt is a MUST HAVE in your bag!
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.
2. Sparkpoint ($SRK)
Sparkpoint is another microcap gem you wouldn’t want to miss. This is one of those altcoins that have multiple products in their ecosystem. One of the games I enjoyed the most is their first-ever Blockchain game in the Philippines - the Crypto Slicer. This game allows you to earn crypto & NFTs as you progress throughout the game. Check out these tradeable NFTs here!
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Link to IMG.
That is not the only thing to be hyped about this company, there are also DeFi features such as their SparkPoint wallet which allows the staking of their native token, and much more!
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.
3. Ferrum Network ($FRM)
Next on our list is Ferrum Network (FRM), which is another Microcap DeFi & fintech company tackling the finance industry by providing emerging markets financial products with the help of innovative technologies such as Blockchain. To seal the deal as a MUST HAVE ALT, Chico Crypto covered Ferrum Network right below!
With the LOW token supply, the strong team behind the company, unparalleled upside potential in the Defi space, $FRM is one of those bags you must get in these times of the red dot. With token benefits such as staking and its multiple products, FRM isn't one gem to be missed.
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.
4. Rapids ($RPD)
In brief, Rapids is a decentralized open-source project combining both blockchain and social media technology employing the utilization of the RPD coin in the ecosystem. Rapids run on the proof of stake consensus protocol using the QUARK algorithm to reward 30% Staking and 60% Masternodes.
Rapids developed one of the most community-driven coins out there in the market. Many of the big holders offer airdrops and giveaways on Twitter to boost community growth and engagement. In addition, they have collaborated with air coins and the community members are given the opportunity to collect RPD tokens while on the move.
Rapids has positioned itself fairly well in the social networking game, it would be exciting to see the project play out given that it has such a low market capitulation of only USD$475,894. So, this is a coin to watch in 2020.
TG.Twitter.Website.
5. Energy Web Token ($EWT)
Energy Web Token is an open-source enterprise-level blockchain that’s disrupting the energy sector which is trusted by leading industry energy leaders.
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Their suite of products includes SDKs, APIs that allow the connectivity to the blockchain and digitally track low-carbon electricity systems. This is done by introducing their technology which allows developers to use these SDKs to build new digital solutions that help communities, nations, companies, and the world in the energy sector. The technology is vast and comprehensive in the approach to tackle the problem which makes EWT one to watch out for.
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.
6. Banano ($BAN)
The Banano network operates in DAG technology and boasts itself as the 4th generation cryptocurrency that offers fee-less transactions in its ecosystem. $BAN is a meme coin and is a fork of the Nano blockchain, but what caught my attention is the strong underlying community members supporting the project.
They've first caught my attention on p0x, and upon joining their community I was astounded. The real heart of the project lies heavily in its community, which reminded me of the earlier times I first joined the Dogecoin community. With activities such as tip bots, Reddit contents, faucet games, meme generation and rewarded QnAs - I'd say they're one of the more lit TG communities not very far from $LINK and $DOGE.
Products wise; they've recently moved over to their mainnet and released products like Kalium, Banano's official wallet app available both on the iOS and Android store where you can send and receive banano.
They also have similar visual account representatives called monKeys which are unique to their banana address & gives each individual their unique digital character, which I found adorable.
While similar to $DOGE, Banano offers more solid fundamentals as evident from the product launches and being a fork of Nano. While DOGE already withstood the test of time, it will be interesting to watch the growth of Banano this 2020 EOY.
TG.Twitter.Website.
7. CurioInvest ($CUR)
CurioInvest is a platform that allows the tokenization of real-world assets, not just cars as advertised on the website. This new Gem is on our radar because the tokenization of cars is disrupting a multi-billion industry that will be accessible to the public mass. Not only that, but we also enjoy the staking benefits, low market capitalization, & the low token supply (2,000,000). Curio will also be launching a CurioDAO using CUR as a utility token, built on Aragon which will provide token holders voting and governance rights. Staking opportunities will also be available in their suite of DeFi platforms.
Blockchain has made endless possibilities and with Curio’s platform, owning a Ferrari, Real Estate, Gold, ETFs will be simple. The digital ownership of the car can also be traded across the platform for digital assets (BTC, ETH, CUR) or into fiat.
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Now that decentralized finance (DeFi) is in the spotlight, it will be worth it to bag up a few of these tokens in light of the next altcoin season. Lastly, a little birdie told me there are rumors up for this HOT crypto GEM company - do check out this thread on 4chan.
TG.Twitter.Website.
8. Sylo ($SYLO)
Sylo is one of the newest projects in the space, and Sylo is its native token that runs in the ecosystem. Their protocol involves the next-generation communication platform that allows users to tap into blockchain while remaining scalable for the millions of users projected in the future. The network also remains decentralized as it uses customers’ computational power while being rewarded for providing the software capabilities.
Now, what's exciting is that Sylo is partnered with Coca Cola! Check out the article here. And lastly, SYLO is deeply connected to large brands through Centrapay! Definitely a coin to bag in. See you on the moon.
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.Kucoin.
9. Sentivate ($SNTVT)
Sentivate caught my attention when Chico Crypto first introduced this token on his youtube as his top altcoin pick that will explode.
While the product they're developing (a Hybrid web browser, hybrid applications) is centralized based, they have a pretty way of convincing that the best solution to fixing the internet is having a hybrid web instead of a decentralized web. Sentivate argues that a decentralized web is slow and is not optimal for use in the future from a scalability standpoint. In their proposed solution, they offer an ecosystem that offers both centralization and decentralization which makes sentivate truly standout.
They are the first project in the cryptoverse that has ever commingled both decentralization and centralization which makes it one of the most phenomenal and exciting projects to look out for.
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.
10. DAPS Coin ($DAPS)
This is one of my favorite coins of all & the all-time TOP privacy altcoin gem, DAPS. It is another community-driven token that is always popping up everywhere on Twitter. DECENTRALIZED ANONYMOUS PAYMENT SYSTEM or DAPS for short is exactly what its name is; an anonymous payment system that is secure and scalable which boasts itself in technology that is derived from both PIVX and Monero. Making it the first crypto project that combined two technological leaders in their niche.
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The chain is validated via a one-of-a-kind hybrid consensus protocol model of PoW (proof-of-work), PoS (proof-of-stake), and PoA (proof-of-audit), a proposed solution by DAPS team to solve the 'Trust problem'.
The solution presented is unique and definitely groundbreaking from a technical perspective, making DAPS one of the most anticipated performers of 2020. DAPS coin has already challenged the TOP 50 of CMC by making use of old tech and combining them to formulate a synthesized powerhouse protocol. This coin is in the bag.
TG.Twitter.Website.
11. Chromia ($CHR)
This GEM is currently one of the highest in terms of market capitalization but still fulfills our criteria as a micro-cap. This is something new and fresh off the shelves with an idea of relational blockchain. This combines the idea of relational databases & the concept of blockchain. These combinations of the two innovative technologies create a smoother, more efficient ecosystem of dApps & acts as a Layer-2 of the Ethereum Network.
The team also announced a recent token burn in this article. The team also plans to launch a staking mechanism in their ecosystem and the Chromia mainnet will be available in Q3 2020. As of writing, the chart of CHR has been in constant increment and forming a beautiful arc-shaped parabola that indicates investors flocking.
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TG.Twitter.Website.Binance.Kucoin.
12. LTO Network ($LTO)
LTO Network is a hybrid network and platform built for business-to-business to boost efficiency and enhance the collaborative approach. The platform allows safe collaboration between businesses whilst binding rules in the form of smart contracts. LTO network currently has two products; Proof Engine and Workflow Engine. The workflow engine is built on a scalable, private permissionless, and on a computational model called Finite State Machines. With a unique tech, forward-looking team, and strong community - LTO is one to be in your watchlist.
TG.Twitter.Website. Binance.
13. Verasity ($VRA)
In brief, VRA is an attention-based platform for video rewards in the form of VRA tokens, making it similar to BAT one way or another. However, Verasity has already established plugins for reward distribution on Entertainment giants such as
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Their ecosystem is summed up in this pictorial depiction.
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Verasity also has its staking platform where you can earn 0.1% daily tokens based on your staked amount. With these global giants already integrated with the VRA reward system, more & more people will begin to obtain VRA tokens just like BAT. With a groundbreaking innovation in the video industry, this token is not far from clawing itself up the top 100.
TG.Twitter.Website.Uniswap.Kucoin.
14. Hydro ($HYDRO)
Hydro has been in the space since the 2nd quarter of 2018 & has made significant progress at the protocol level. With a new turnover of team members, the core team is growing at an exponential rate, it would be interesting to watch as they revive the team & project as a whole, and onboard as many developers to build with their COMPLETE suite of protocols available on Github. These tools are sufficient to create some of the most groundbreaking Defi, Blockchain, & Tokenization products.
TG.Twitter.Website.
15. Brickblock ($BBK)
This token has been on my radar for a long time now, and I have also written a comprehensive article on it already so I will keep this short and simple.
Brickblock is a platform that leverages blockchain and provides access for users to invest cryptocurrency in tokenized real-world assets such as real estate, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), paintings. Brickblock, however, is focussing on obtaining clients in the real estate industry.
They've recently made their first tokenized transaction in their platform and the fees are distributed in the form of ACT tokens which are backed by ETH (fixed ratio 1000 ACT for 1 ETH).
Simply put, it's a staking (activating of tokens) platform and the rewards are highly dependent on its platform liquidity. Brickblock already has it's staking platform live but it is awaiting more ACT earnings after raising funds from more real-estate assets.
Brickblock's transactions go by millions if not by hundreds of thousand dollars, if this project lifts off, the staking rewards will be one of the biggest in the industry. The assets being traded are real estate properties and exchanging hands in the form of millions. A small big of Brickblock might go a long mile in the future.
TG.Twitter.Website.
*Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency & penny cryptos are highly volatile & risky assets. Please do your own research before investing. This article does not serve as a financial advice. All content found in this article is purely the author's opinion and NONE of the companies mentioned in this article paid to be mentioned.
submitted by Looking at using IDEX for the first time, interested in buying SENT. Is this exchange fully decentralized? It says it's a decentralized exchange, but they have their own wallet, so is it more a semi-decentralized? What's the go here? Thanks.
submitted by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P55t6eryY3g - 41:34 *...
Say, for the sake of argument, your friend Gabe is starting to worry you.
Gabe’s always been just, you know, a regular guy. Not very political. He likes video games, sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, and anime. White guy shit. The only offbeat thing about him is you suspect there’s like a 20% chance he’s a furry. For all intents and purposes, Gabe is a normie.
But recently Gabe’s been spending a lot of time on some radically conservative forums, and listening to radically conservative podcasts, and picking some radically conservative arguments with you and your friends. You never would have expected this, not from Gabe, and, given the speed it’s happened, it’s worrying to think where it might be headed.
How have the Alt-Right gotten their hooks into your friend? ...
Step 1: Identify the Audience
What you need to know before we begin is: around 2013, the Nazis went online.
Hate groups in the US, as tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had been growing in number since the noughts, but, between 2012 and 2014, they dropped by almost a quarter. Patriot groups dropped by over a third. However, hate crimes stayed about the same. Radical conservatism was not shrinking, but decentralizing. Still radical, still often violent, but now full of white nationalist nomads unlikely to join a formal organization.
This didn’t make them harmless. What it did was protect their asses from the typical hate group cycle: getting the public’s attention, making allies in conservative media, swelling their numbers, and then eventually disgracing themselves with failures, infighting, and, often enough, members committing horrific acts of violence, which come with social and sometimes legal consequences for all the other members.
So the Alt-Right and their fellow travelers these days don’t so much have members. They have hashtags, followers, viewers, and subscribers. This insulates them from their own audience. If Gabe, as a member of that audience, were to go out and commit a crime on their behalf, there’d be little doubt they had a hand in radicalizing him, but it’d be very hard to claim they told him to do it. On some of these sites, where Gabe spends hours and hours of his day, he’s never created an account or left a comment; the people radicalizing him don’t even know he’s there.
This distributed nature is what makes the Alt-Right, and the movements connected to it, unique. (You may remember a notable proof-of-concept for this strategy.) Doing almost everything online has, as compared with traditional hate movements, dramatically increased their reach and inoculated them from consequence. The trade-off, as we will see, is a lack of control.
And so we come to Gabe.
Gabe exists at the intersection of the kinds of people the Alt-Right is looking for - straight white cis men who feel emasculated by modern society, primarily, though they do make exceptions - and the kinds of people who are vulnerable to recruitment. Gabe fits the first profile in that he got bullied in high school, and often feels he has to hide his nerdy side for fear of getting ridiculed. The Alt-Right also has success with men who can’t get laid or recently got divorced or feel anxious about an influx of non-white people in their community. These things can make one feel like less than the confident white man they’re “supposed” to be. And it’s the closest they will ever come to being minoritized.
Regarding the second profile, it’s important to know that Gabe is not categorically different from you or me. He’s a cishet white dude - his problems are not unique. There isn’t a ton of research into the demography of the Alt-Right, but there may be a higher-than-average chance Gabe has a history of being abused or comes from a broken home. You don’t know if it’s true of Gabe, he’s never said. But most abuse survivors don’t become Nazis. The things that make people like Gabe recruitable tend to be situational: it happens often during periods of transition, as dramatic as the death of a loved or as benign as moving to a new city. Things that make people ask big life questions. Gabe has concerns like economic precarity, not knowing his place in a changing world, stressful working conditions. In other words, Gabe is suffering under late capitalism, same as everyone, and it’s entirely plausible he could have gone down the path to becoming a Leftist.
This is not to make an “economic anxiety” argument: the animating force of the Far Right is and always has been bigotry. But the Alt-Right targets Gabe by treating his “economic anxiety” as one of many things bigotry can be sold as a solution to. It is their aim that, when dissatisfied white men go looking for answers, they find the Alt-Right before they find us.
Step Two: Establish a Community
Were Gabe pledging an old-school hate movement, there would probably be a recruiter to usher him into an existing community. But that’s the kind of formalized interaction modern extremists try to avoid. Online extremism has many points of entry, and everybody’s journey is unique, so rather than be comprehensive we will focus on what are, in my estimation, the two most common pathways: the Far Right creates a community Gabe is likely to stumble into, or infiltrates a community Gabe is already in.
The stumble-upon method has two main branches, one of which is just “Gabe ends up on a chan board,” which we’ve already done a video about. The other is kind of the polar opposite of 4chan’s cult of anonymity: Gabe ends up in the fandom of a Far Right thought leader.
These folks are charismatic media personalities (that’s charismatic according to Gabe’s tastes, not ours; I don’t understand it, either). These personalities may gain traction on any number of platforms, from podcasts to reportage to blogging, though the most effective platform for redpilling is, and yes I am biting the hand that feeds me, YouTube. They may get Gabe’s attention through fairly standard means, like talking about or even generating controversy to get themselves trending, while some of the more committed will employ dubious SEO tactics like clickbait, google bombing, and data voids (just pause for definitions, we don’t have time).
What they tend to have in common, especially the most accessible ones, is that they don’t present themselves as entry points to the radical Right. In fact, many did not set out to be Far Right thought leaders, and may not think of themselves as such (though they are often selling products, of which the Alt-Right are among their biggest purchasers, and it’s not like they’re turning the money away). How they present is the same way anyone presents who wants to be successful on social media: accessible, approachable, authentic. The face-to-face relationship a budding extremist forms with their recruiter or the leader of their hate group’s local chapter are here folded into one parasocial relationship with a complete stranger.
Why this person appeals to Gabe is they’re not selling politics as politics, but conservatism as a kind of lifestyle brand. They rely heavily on criticizing or ridiculing the Left: feminists are oversensitive, Black people unintelligent, queer folks doomed to loneliness, and trans people insane; I dunno if it’s a coincidence that these are all things Gabe thinks about himself in his low moments. By contrast, they don’t sell conservatism as having sounder policies or a more coherent moral framework, but that abandoning progressive principles and embracing conservative ones will make Gabe happier. Remember, Gabe isn’t looking for white nationalism or misogyny, what he wants is the cure to soul-sickness, and these friendly micro-celebs are here to offer a shot of life advice with politics as the chaser. It is extremely important that politics be presented as a set of affects, not a set of beliefs.
The second pathway is infiltration, which is its own beast. Media personalities sometimes become gateways to the Right almost by accident: they do something edgy, a part of their audience reacts positively, and, facing no real consequence, they do it more; this leads to further positive reinforcement from conservative fans, the rest of the audience acclimates, and the cycle repeats, the personality pushing the envelope further and further based on what flies with their increasingly conservative audience. In this way, they become a right-wing figure by both radicalizing and being radicalized by their audience.
Infiltration is deliberate.
The Far Right will reliably target any community that has 1) a large, white, male population, 2) whose niche interests allow them to feel vaguely marginalized, and 3) who are not used to progressive critique of said interests. This isn’t to say progressive critique doesn’t exist, or hasn’t been baked into the property from the beginning, but that it has been, so far, easy for white guys to ignore. As such, progressives within that community probably don’t talk politics much, and women and minorities are perfectly welcome to post, same as anyone, but just, you know, don’t, don’t make identity politics, you know, like, a thing.
Given Gabe’s proclivities, he’s probably already in a number of fan communities where he can geek out and not get teased. And this is where the Far Right will go looking for him
Communities are at their most vulnerable to infiltration at times of political discord. This can happen naturally - say, a new property in the fandom has a Black protagonist - or it can be provoked - say, a bunch of channers join the forum and say provocative things about race to get people arguing - or both. Left to its own devices, the community might sort out its differences and maybe even come out more progressive than they started. But, with the right pressure applied in the right moment, these communities can devolve into arguments about the need to remove a nebulously-defined “politics” from the conversation.
The adage about bros on the internet is “‘political’ means anything I disagree with,” but it’d be more accurate to say, here, “‘political’ means anything on which the community disagrees.” For instance, “Nazis are bad” is an apolitical statement because everyone in the community agrees. It’s common sense, and therefore neutral. But, paradoxically, “Nazis are good” is also apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the consensus, “Nazis are good” must be just an edgy joke, and, even if not, the community already believes the opposite, so the statement is harmless. Tolerable. However, “feminism is good” is a political statement, because the community hasn’t reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it. And making political arguments, no matter how rational, is having an agenda, and having an agenda is ruining the community.
(Now, it is curious how the things that provoke the most disagreement tend to be whichever ones make white dudes uncomfortable. One of life’s great, unanswerable mysteries.)
You can gather where this is going: a community that doesn’t tolerate progressivism but does tolerate Nazism is going to start collecting Nazis, Nazis whose goal is to drive a wedge between the community and the Left. Once the Left acknowledges, “Hey, your community’s developing a Nazi problem,” the Nazis - who are, remember, trusted, apolitical members of the community who might just be kidding about all the Nazi shit - say, “Did you hear that, guys?! Those cultural Marxists just called all of us Nazis!” Wedge. Similarly, any community members who say, “but Nazis though” are framed as infiltrators pushing an agenda, even if they’ve been there longer than the Nazis have. They get the wedge, too.
This is how fandoms radicalize. They are built as - yeah, I’ll say it - safe spaces for nerds, weebs, and furries, and are told that the Left is a threat to their safety. Given a choice between leaving a community that has mattered to him for years and simply adjusting to the community’s shifting politics, the assumption is that Gabe will stay. This assumption is right often enough that a lot of fandoms have been colonized.
What is true of both of these methods - Gabe finding the Right or the Right finding him - is that Gabe does not come nor stay for the ideology. He’s here for the community, the sense of belonging, of being with his people, of having his fears validated and his enjoyment shared. The ideology is simply the price of admission.
Step Three: Isolate
There is a vast, interconnected network of Far Right communities out there, and Gabe is, at this point, only on the periphery. In order to keep him in, they need to disrupt his relationships to other communities, and become, more and more, his primary online social space. Having made this space hostile to the Left, they now seek to break his connections to progressives elsewhere in his life.
This is hard to do online. The whole appeal of moving radicalism to the internet is that your away-from-keyboard life doesn’t have to change. You are crypto the moment you log off. Some thought leaders will encourage their audience to cut ties with Family of Origin, or “deFOO,” but, even then, they can’t monitor whether the audience has actually done it the way an in-person movement could. And so alienating Gabe from the Left is less controlled, and, consequently, may be less total. How much Gabe isolates is up to him.
But the vast majority of Far Right media presumes an alienation from the Left. Part of conservative bloggers and YouTubers making the Left look pathetic is doing a lot take-downs and responses. This is a constant repetition of the Left’s arguments for the purpose of mockery, and, for Gabe, it starts to replace any engagement with progressive media directly. He soon knows the Left only through caricature. It also trains him, if he does directly engage, to approach the Left with the same combative stance as his role models. (For reference, see my comment section.) And this is only if he doesn’t partake in one of the many active boycotts of “SJW media.”
In addition to mocking the Left’s arguments, they also, curiously, appropriate them. This is one part sanitization: liberal centrism is more socially acceptable; indeed, many figures on the outer layers think of themselves as moderates, even as they serve as gateways to radicalism. But, also, many of Gabe’s problems could be addressed by progressive leftism, so they sell him racist, sexist versions of it. Yes, there is a problem with workers being underpaid and overextended, but the solution isn’t unions, it’s deporting immigrants; yes, there is a chronic loneliness and anger to being a man in the modern age, but it’s not because of the toxic masculine expectations placed on you by the patriarchy, it’s women being slutty; yes, wealth disparity does mean a tiny percentage of elites have more influence over culture and politics than the rest of us combined, but the problem isn’t capitalism, it’s the Jews. And it’s hard for Gabe to reject these ideas without, in the process, rejecting the progressive ideas they’re copied from; the Right’s “take the red pill” is, to the untrained eye, similar to the Left’s “get woke.” (Or, at least, the bowdlerized version of “get woke” that is no longer specifically about race which came to fashion when white people started saying it, grumble grumble.)
Take the red pill or reject them both; either is a step to the right.
As this rhetoric slips into his day-to-day conversation, even as seemingly harmless “irreverence,” it may strain relationships with people who are not entertained by this shit. Off-color comments about race and gender can certainly be wearying for female and non-white friends, which can lead to a passive distance or an eventual confrontation [“why is everyone but me so sensitive?!”], which only seem to confirm what his reactionary community says about liberal snowflakes. If he says these things on social media, he may get his account suspended, and, if he comes back under an alt, you can bet his new reactionary friends will be the first to reconnect, applaud the behavior that got him banned, and repeat should he get banned again. A few cycles of this and he’s lost touch with everyone else.
Also, his adoption of the insular, meme-laden terminology of this community makes him less and less comprehensible to outsiders.
Over time, sources of information get replaced with community-approved ones: conservative news, conservative YouTube, conservative Wikipedia if he’s really committed. The Algorithm soon takes note and stops recommending media from the Left. He stops watching shows with a “liberal agenda,” which usually means shows starring women and people of color. Now, there is evidence that the human mind responds to fictional characters similarly to real people, and that consuming diverse media can decrease bigotry in ways roughly analogous to having a diverse group of friends, which is one of many reasons we say representation matters. By consuming a homogenous media diet, Gabe stymies his ability to have even parasocial relationships with anyone who isn’t a cishet conservative white dude or one of their approved exceptions.
To the extent that any of this happens, it happens at Gabe’s discretion and at his own chosen pace. It has not been forced on him, only encouraged and rewarded. But the fact that it hasn’t been forced can make him all the more willing to accept it, because it seems safe to consider; even though his life and social circle are changing to accommodate, he does not feel committed. But many Gabes have walked these halls, and, if they close the door behind them, there’s nowhere left to go but down.
Step Four: Raise their Power Level
(…and they say we ruined anime.)
Consider the ecosystem of the Alt-Right as layers of an onion, with Gabe sitting at the edge and ready to traverse towards the center. (No, I’m not just going to reiterate the PewDiePipeline, though, if you haven’t seen it, go do that.)
The outer layer of the onion is extremism at its most plausibly deniable. Without careful scrutiny, the public-facing figureheads could pass as dispassionate, and the websites as merely problematic rather than softly fascist. It is valuable if Gabe believes this as well; that, at this stage, he believe the bigotry is simply trolling, the extremists an insignificant minority, and any report of harassment faked. That he believe where he is is as deep as the rabbit hole goes. And that he continue to believe this at each successive layer.
People in the deepest crevices of the Alt-Right self-report getting redpilled on multiple issues at different times in their journey to the center of the onion. If Gabe’s first red pill is about the SJWs coming for his free speech, he’ll think that’s all anyone in his community believes; there’s no racism here, people are just making a point about their right to use slurs. Then, when he gets redpilled on the white genocide, he’ll laugh at those Alt-Lite cucks who tried to sweep the race realists under the rug, and at himself for having once been one, but acknowledge that those channels and websites are still useful for onboarding people, so he won’t denounce them. At the same time, nobody takes those manosphere betas seriously.
And this process is reiterated with every pill swallowed: gender essentialism, autogynephilia, birtherism, Sandy Hook truth, pizzagate, QAnon if he’s really out there. The heart of the onion is typically the Jewish Question, but these can happen in any order, and in any number. But each layer sells itself as being, finally, the ultimate truth. Each denies the validity of the others; the layers ahead don’t exist, they’re made up my liberals, while the people behind are asleep where you are now awake. That’s why they chose “the red pill” as their metaphor: take it, and everything will be revealed. That’s why it cozies up with conspiracism. But what’s supposed to follow is that this knowledge help Gabe in some way, and it doesn’t. Blaming immigrants doesn’t actually fix the economy, and hating women doesn’t make men less lonely. But, having been alienated from everything outside the onion, once that sinks in, the only recourse on offer is to seek out the next pill.
And pills are easy to find. Those within the network have laissez-faire relationships, even as they, on paper, disavow one another. When they need a source or a guest host, they aren’t going to go to the Left; they’re going to feature each other. The Left is the enemy; their ideas are beneath consideration, and the only reason to engage them is for public humiliation. [Shapiro’s book.] But you can interview “western chauvinists” and that doesn’t mean you’re endorsing them, just, you know, it’s fine to hear ‘em out, nothing should be off-limits in the marketplace of ideas. Besides, Nazis are apolitical.
And because these folks keep showing up in each others’ metadata, regardless of what they say, Google thinks there is definitely a relationship between the guy “just asking questions” and the guy denying the Holocaust. Gabe is softly exposed to many flavors of conservatism just slightly more radical than he is now, and is expected, at the very least, to not question their presence. This is an environment where deradicalizing - listening to the Left - would be sleeping with the enemy, but radicalizing further? You do you, buddy.
Gabe’s emotional journey, however, is somewhat more complex. If you’ve spent any time reading or watching reactionary media you’ve probably noticed it’s really. fucking. repetitive. It’s a few thousand phrasings of the same handful of arguments. Like, there’s only so many jokes about attack helicopters! But these people just crank out content, and most of it’s derivative; the reason to pick one personality over another isn’t because they say something different, but because they say it differently. Gabe just picks the affect it’s delivered in.
Repetition dulls the shock of the most egregious statements, making them appear normal and prepping him for more extreme ideas. Meanwhile, the arguments themselves? They’re not good. (BreadTube will never run out of shit to debunk.) They are repetitive because they’re not good. They’re mantric. A good argument you only need to hear one time; if you can follow it, internalize it, and explain it to someone else, you know you’ve understood it. But a bad argument can’t convince you on its own merits, so it will often rely on affect. This can be the snappy, thought-terminating cliche, or the long, winding diatribe that sounds really sensible while you’re hearing it but when someone asks you for the gist you can only say “go watch these 17 videos and it’ll all make sense.” Both these approaches are largely devoid of content, but, gosh, if they don’t sound sure of themselves.
And that mode can be very persuasive, but it doesn’t stick the way a coherent argument does. It needs to be repeated, the affect replenished, because the words matter less than the delivery. There needs to be a steady stream of confident voices saying “we’ve got this figured out and everyone else is stupid” or Gabe’s gonna notice the flaws. They are not well-hidden.
And the catch-22 of returning to that stream over and over is that these communities are stressful even as they are calming. People afraid they will die virgins go to forums with people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, you will die a virgin.” People afraid Syrians are coming to kill us all watch videos by people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, Syrians are coming to kill us all.” Others have already pointed out that rubbing your face in your worst anxieties is a form of digital self-harm, but I need to you understand the toxic recursion of it: Gabe is going to these communities to get upset. Every emotion is converted into anger, because sadness, fear, and despair are paralyzing but anger is motivating; Gabe feels less helpless when he’s pissed off. And so, while he’s topping up on reassuring nonsense, he’s also topping up on stress. And, being cut off from everything outside the network, the only place he knows to go to release that stress is back to the place that gives it to him. It’s a feedback loop, pulling him deeper and deeper on the promise that, at some point, relief will come.
It is a similar dynamic that keeps people in abusive relationships.
When someone in Gabe’s community makes a racist joke, they are presenting Gabe with a choice between the human interaction of laughing with his friends and his societal responsibility not to be a fuckin’ racist. And not laughing seems ridiculous; everybody’s friends here; no one’s getting hurt; this is harmless. And so the irreverent race joke draws a line between the personal and the political, and suggests that one can be safely prioritized over the other. One way to look at radicalization is being asked to stick with that seemingly innocuous decision as the stakes are raised incrementally: first with edgier humor, and then comments that are funny because they’re shocking but you couldn’t really call them jokes, and then “funny” comments that are also sincerely angry, but, in each instance, since he laughed with his bros last time, it stands to reason he should keep favoring the personal over some abstracted notion of “politics.”
This is why the progressive adage “the personal is political” is among the most threatening things you can say in these spaces.
I’m not trying to make a slippery slope argument. Most of us who laughed at edgy jokes when we were teenagers didn’t grow up to be Nazis. It is a slippery slope in the specific context of being in community with people trying to radicalize you. Gabe is a lonely white boy in need of friends, and laughing at a racist joke is personal, while not laughing is political. Staying in a community that has Nazis in it is personal, and leaving is political. The personal is what brings people together and the political drives them apart. (The “only if some of them are bigots” part of that sentence is usually lopped off). There’s this joke on the internet that nerds perceive only two races: white and political. Following that logic, what could be more apolitical than an ethnostate?
They are banking on his willingness to adapt his beliefs to suit an environment that meets a need. That same need can be satisfied by white nationalism. There are few things more seductive to people who doubt their own worth than being told you are valuable simply for being white. And you can sub in male, cis, straight, allosexual, or able-bodied. It just takes priming: by the time Gabe officially embraces bigotry, he’s already been acting like a bigot for months. The red pill is simply the moment he says it out loud.
Change Gabe’s surroundings, and you change Gabe.
Step Five: ???
The final step in a traditional extremist group would be getting a mission. But that is one thing the Alt-Right can’t do. Once you start giving clear directives, you can’t play yourselves off as a bunch of unaffiliated hashtags and think tanks; you are now a formalized movement accountable to its followers, and can be judged and policed as such.
To my mind, Charlottesville was an attempt to become such a movement, taking things offline and getting all the different groups working collectively. And, as so often happens when these people get in the same space - especially with no official leaders or means of control over their members - it backfired. Their true colors came out before they were ready and a counter-protester lost her life.
This would be the point where, historically, an extremist group starts to disintegrate. Their veneer of respectability gone, they’re now hated by the public, the media wants nothing more to do with them, and everyone not in jail turns on each other or goes underground. This is also the point where the liberal establishment says, “My job here is done,” and utterly fails to retake control of the narrative, allowing the next batch of radicals to pick up more or less where the last one left off.
But to an already-decentralized group like the Alt-Right, Charlottesville was bad but eminently survivable. People retreated back to the internet, with its code words and anonymous forums, but that’s where much of the work was already done anyway. The platforms where they organized kept tolerating them, the authorities still didn’t classify them as terrorists, and any disgraced figureheads were replaced with up-and-comers.
The major change in strategy is that it doesn’t seem anyone has tried to formalize the Alt-Right since.
So where does that leave Gabe? He’s gone through this whole process of largely hands-off indoctrination - and I should stress his journey may look like what we’ve outlined or it may look different in places, this video is not comprehensive - but now he’s swallowed every pill he cares to, he blames half a dozen minorities for everything he sees as wrong with the world, and no one will give him anything to do. You’ve got this ad hoc movement frothing young men into a militant fervor and then just leaving them to stew in their own hate. Should we really be surprised at how many commit mass shootings?
This is a machine for producing lone wolves.
Leaving men to take up arms of their own volition is a way of enacting terror while being just outside the popular conception of a terror cell. There are also, of course, more classic militias that will offer Gabe clear directives - they’re recruiting from the same pool. And Gabe may stop short of this step, settling in a middle layer that suits him or finding the inner layers too extreme. But violence is the logical conclusion of an ideology of hate, and, should Gabe take this step, he can approach violence in the same incremental fashion he approached conservatism.
He can start with yelling at people on Twitter, and then maybe collective brigading, DDoS attacks, sharing dox, leaking nudes, calling their phone numbers, texting them pictures of their houses from the sidewalk. These acts of cruelty become games of oneupmanship within his community. All this can start as far back as Step 2, and get more intense the deeper he goes. Some people join explicitly partake in harassment and violence the way Gabe joined to talk about anime.
But this behavior can serve as a kind of buy-in. The Left and the feminists and the LGBTQs and the Muslims and the immigrants are all, within his community, subhuman. You’ve maybe heard the conservative catchphrase “feminism is cancer”; well don’t treat cancer by having a respectful exchange of ideas with it, but by eradicating it down to the last cell. Cruelty against the Left is framed as righteous.
From any other perspective, posting someone’s bank information is something you might feel ashamed of. Which creates a psychological imperative not to consider other perspectives. A thing that keeps people in is staving off the guilt they will reckon with the moment they step out. Gabe is also aware that anything he’s done to the Left could be done to him if he leaves; some communities even keep dox on their members as insurance. And the things he’s been encouraged to do to the Left will likely make him feel that the Left would never take him now; the radical Right is the only home he’s got. Harassment becomes another tool of isolation.
Steadily, options for Gabe are whittled down to being a vigilante or a nihilist. There are periods of elation: moments the Alt-Right feels it’s winning - or, more accurately, the people they hate are losing - are like cocaine. They are authoritarians, after all. But the times in between are mean and angry. They are antisocial, starved of emotional connection, consuming incompatible conspiracies that may at any point run them afoul of one another, devoted to figureheads who cater to but cannot risk leading them, and living under constant threat of being outed to the Left or turned on by the Right for stepping out of line. Gabe took this journey for the sense of community and purpose, and, but for the rare moments everything goes their way, the Alt-Right can’t maintain either. They can only keep promising his day will come, a story he could get from a $5 palm reading.
The feeling there’s nothing left but to kill yourself or someone else is so common it’s a meme.
But there is always a third option: Gabe can leave.
Pre-Conclusion: For Fuck’s Sake Do Not Make Gabe Your Whole-Ass Praxis
Before we continue, I want to state plainly that Gabe went off the deep end because he found a community willing to tell him that, because he is a cishet white man, the world revolves around him. Do not treat him like this is true.
If a fraction of the energy spent having debates with America’s Gabes were spent instead on voter re-enfranchisement, prisoner’s rights, protections for immigrants, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, and redistricting, Gabe’s opinions, in the societal sense, wouldn’t matter. Reactionary conservatism is a small and largely unpopular ideology that is only so represented in our culture and politics because they’ve learned how to game the system.
And I get it. Those are huge problems that are going to take years to address, where, if you know a Gabe, that’s a conversation you could have today. And, if you think you can get through to him, it is worthwhile to try. This is a fight on many fronts and deradicalization is one of them. But it is only one, so please keep it in perspective. It sends an awful message when we spend more time trying to get bigots back on our side than we do the people they are bigoted against.
Your value as a lefty does not hinge on whether you can change Gabe’s mind.
Conclusion: How Gabe Gets Out
He may just grow out of it. These communities skew young, and some folks hit a point where hanging with edgy teens doesn’t feel cool anymore.
He may become disillusioned after the movement fails to deliver on its promises.
He may become disillusioned if something goes wrong in his life and his community isn’t there for him, if he feels they like his race and his gender but don’t actually care about him.
He may be shocked if he sees the Alt-Right at its worst before being appropriately conditioned. Charlottesville was a step too far for a lot of people.
His community may turn on him for any perceived unorthodoxy, and he may leave out of necessity.
He may be separated by circumstance from the community - a trip with no internet, hospitalization, arrest - and not be able to top up on the rhetoric. This may lead him to question his beliefs.
His community may disappear, either tearing itself apart or getting shut down by authorities.
He may have incidental contact with populations he’s supposed to hate, and have trouble reconciling who they are in person with what he’s been told about them. In his community, people bond over shared intolerance, but, suddenly, being tolerant helps him make friends. (This is one reason the Alt-Right has made a battleground of the college campus.)
He may form or revisit relationships outside the network, people who can offer him the connection he’s been looking for. This may reintroduce outside perspectives. More importantly, it rekindles his ability to have healthy relationships at all, something the Alt-Right has estranged him from.
As with recruiters, it seems these “escape hatch” relationships can sometimes be parasocial; coming to respect a public figure who is on the Left, or is critical of the Alt-Right.
Someone he is close to may compel him to choose, “me or the movement.” A lot of young men leave to save a romantic relationship.
Hearing stories from people who’ve already jumped may help; there aren’t a lot of public formers, and some raise suspicions as to their sincerity, but it is getting more common, and may be the closest we get to exit counseling for the Alt-Right.
He may become aware of the ways he’s being manipulated, or have them revealed to him, maybe because he stumbled into BreadTube, I dunno. Knowledge that you are being indoctrinated is no guarantee it won’t work - you are not immune to propaganda - but it can help one resist.
And he may revisit a core belief system that used to guide him, be it religion or social justice or a really wholesome fandom, and be reminded of the identity he used to have.
Moments like these, in isolation or in aggregate, can inspire Gabe to jump. They are also good times for friends to intervene. The reach and the impunity that comes with the internet means it has never been easier to fall into reactionary extremism. It has also never been easier to get out. People who exit skinhead gangs often fear for their lives; for Gabe, there’s a chance getting out is as simple as going to a different website. Much of his community does not know his name or his face and he may not important enough to dox.
What doesn’t get Gabe out - not reliably, not that I have seen - is an argument with a stranger who proves all his facts wrong and his ideology bunk. Facts don’t always work because facts don’t care about his feelings. This was about staying in a community, and holding onto an identity, that mattered to him. It was about belonging, and that is something a rando from the other side of the culture war can’t give him and probably shouldn’t be responsible for.
The theme here is human connection. Before he can do the work of disentangling himself, and facing the guilt of what he’s believed and maybe done, he has to know there’s somewhere for him on the other end of it. That the Right hasn’t ruined him. They’ve told him all of history is groups fighting each other over status, and, without his clan, he’ll be an exile. He needs a better story.
I don’t know that lefty spaces are ideal for this, in no small part because bringing someone who’s a bit of a Nazi but working on it into diverse communities is… questionable. And it probably wouldn’t be good for him, either; having just gotten out of a toxic belief system, he’s going to be deeply skeptical of all ideologies. In a perfect world, people who care about Gabe could build for him - to use a therapy term - a holding space. Someplace private - physical or digital - where Gabe can work out his feelings, where he is both encouraged and expected to be better but is not, in the moment, judged. That comes later. It is delicate and time-consuming work that should not be done in public, but we find these beliefs, built up over the course of months or years, tend to fall away very quickly with a shift of environment. Change Gabe’s surroundings and you change Gabe.
But, instead, a lot of people who jump are functionally deprogramming themselves, which is working for a lot of them, but it’s haphazard, and there are recidivists.
If you don’t personally know a Gabe, or have training as a counselor, you may not be in a position to help him. Possibly there are things you can do to disrupt the recruitment process or prevent infiltration of spaces you’re in - I’m looking into it, but talk to your mods - but, elephant in the room: meaningful change will require reform on the part of platform holders. Tools to disrupt this process already exist and are being used on groups like ISIS, but they’re not being used on the Alt-Right because they try oh so very hard not to get classified as terrorists (and also any functioning anti-radicalization policy would require banning a lot of conservative politicians, so there’s that…).
But what makes our story better than theirs is that the fight for social and economic justice, though it is long, and difficult, and frustrating, when it works, it fulfills the promise the Right can’t keep: it materially make people’s lives better. I am not prone to sentimentality, or to giving these videos happy endings. But one thing we have that the Alt-Right doesn’t is hope.*
submitted by ‘Panic?’ So theyre chalking it up to FUD as their explanation? Smh. For any of you whose been involved in the crypto game b4 Q417, you already know what I’m about to say. For all the rest: this was a 4PD if I ever saw one.
4PD (disambiguation) is one of many slang acronyms / memes that really apexed in usage circa 2016 & pretty much dissipated after cryptowinter. It stands for 4chan Pump & Dump — back when the first DEXes were launching & the only ‘stablecoin’ was USDT (which remained the only stablecoin until after BTC ATH which brought widespread, global attention to regulators) & the notion was anyone who had 10+ BTC (which wasnt inconceivable back when I started trading at $200 per coin) would scour 4chan and dark web message boards with forum posts titled “4PD LFXM” where X = 1 user or 10 BTC .
These simplistic yet complicated, paradoxical form of easily spotted & instantly recognizable code would let pump & dumpers (whales only) seek out each other so if I post 4PD LF2M then without needing to read the thread or post (of which was usually vague or left empty) I would know right off the bat that there’s a group of 3 whales who all are willing to commit 10 BTC each, thus 30 BTC total seeking 2 more ppl or 20 more BTC.
This was so rampant in 2016 (the golden year of crypto for early adopters) that anyone who had any experience trading knew right away to stay the fuck away from any coin/token with a market cap under 50 million — I must confess I am guilty of being apart of one of these groups.
We pumped golem, bcc (bitconnect) Bitcoin gold and a slew of other shitcoins that don’t even exist anymore. We would all buyin & made the whole community FOMO then dump at the top.
The only problem was finding a group you can trust ; which fortunately for SWIM worked out great as they used software to create an algorithmic system of escrow to make sure we had proof of stake and no need to trust each other.
Anyone’s curious how it worked out in terms of ROI; basically we’d(they’d) dump 10 BTC each & 50 BTC into a shitcoin and split the return at the top of the wick which usually was anywhere from 25%-10,000% profit (yes, I know...)
Technically they/we should all be in jail for what SWIM did. If it makes you feel any better, SWIM lost 80% of everything in cryptowinter and SWIM donated tens of thousands of $$ to irc unicef & st Jude.
Now? SWIM has nowhere near the net worth he had back then but is comfortable enough for me to focus on my research & startup while not needing to work for food/bills.
Disclaimer SWIM = someone who isn’t me. The story above is strictly an alleged hypothetical; unsubstantiated & without evidence of said events having occurred. SWIM is not liable for any incidents of pump and dumping nor does SWIM know anybody that is. Additionally described above is nothing more than pure conjecture and a potential hypothetical for educational and entertainment purposes.
submitted by A bunch of internet anons and their crypto picks have purportedly outperformed hedge funds in the crypto space, according to data by on-chain analytics firm Mes 4chan’s Chainlink, Tendies picks made it the top "crypto fund” of 2020 - TheBitcoinDesk There are some that don’t think highly of 4chan — the anonymous messaging board. The post Investor: 4chan has become crypto’s “largest market driver” after Chainlink boom appeared first on CryptoSlate. A bunch of internet anons and their crypto picks have purportedly outperformed hedge funds in the crypto space, according to data by on-chain analytics firm Messari. 4chan’s /biz channel, the tongue-in-cheek go-to for trollers (and even the sane) for business and financial advice, has picked some top-performing altcoins this year. These include altcoins like Chainlink […] A bunch of internet anons and their crypto picks have purportedly outperformed hedge funds in the crypto space, according to data by on-chain analytics firm Messari.4chan’s /biz channel, the tongue-in-cheek go-to for trollers (and even the sane) for business and financial advice, has picked some A bunch of internet anons and their crypto picks have purportedly outperformed hedge funds in the crypto space, according to data by on-chain analytics firm Messari.4chan’s /biz channel, the tongue-in-cheek go-to for trollers (and even the sane) for business and financial advice, has picked some top-performing altcoins this year. These include altcoins like Chainlink (LINK)...
