Australian software developer Jackson Palmer is a co-creator of Dogecoin. It’s a meme-inspired cryptocurrency that launched as a joke in 2013 but has become one of the world’s most valuable, after being promoted by the likes of Elon Musk and the traders at r/wallstreetbets. Palmer left the crypto community in 2015 and denounced the technology. Palmer gave a rare interview to coincide with the launch of his new podcast Griftonomics.
CRIKEY: You haven’t given many interviews and don’t even tweet much — although when you do, it often makes a splash. This week, you launched a new podcast Griftonomics. Why now?
JACKSON PALMER: I actually purchased the Griftonomics domain a year ago. I was going to do this before the [July 2021 tweet storm where he denounced cryptocurrency as an “inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology]. I saw what was happening a year ago. It wasn’t just crypto, it was like gambling on Twitch, rumblings of the metaverse. I realised it didn’t really matter if you were producing any value anymore, the whole world has become this snake oil scheme.
So I bought griftonomics.com and the first episode was going to be about crypto. I’d written the introduction and that’s what became that tweet thread. I was reflecting on it a lot, thinking “do I pull the trigger or not?”. I had been off Twitter for a couple of years because I’ve gotten burned out on crypto and was enjoying a quieter life. Instead of the…
