UNFK is Gamifying Civic Engagement, Kicking Off With a Campaign to Get Rid of Gensler
Renowned pranksters target SEC Chair Gary Gensler
On July 25, a secret society that pranks the world’s largest corporations launched a campaign against crypto’s persona non grata: SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Their call to action? Get Gensler to step down, so the good people at the SEC can focus on innovation.
This is no Stand With Crypto-style advocacy. It’s Comedy Central meets interactive web3 shenanigans. UNFK is gamifying pranks and stunts, both online and in the real world. In less than a week, UNFK’s manifesto went viral, striking a chord with Crypto Twitter.
Backing UNFK is a coalition of crypto’s biggest influencers, such as Cozomo de’ Medici, Seedphrase, Bharat, Mooncats and Ice Bagz – and led by Chief Prankster Gunnar Lovelace. Best known as the co-founder of Thrive Market, Lovelace was disillusioned by where the money always ends up – lining the pockets of corporations and executives, rather than being fairly distributed to the people who contributed to its success.
A lifelong prankster, Lovelace had a formative moment in college that crystalized his career. He ran an environmental prankster group where he hosted a series of speakers, one being Medea Benjamin, who – pre social media – organized one of the largest boycott campaigns in modern history.
“Her campaign knocked billions of dollars of enterprise value off of Nike’s stock and caused them to completely re-platform their sweatshop supply chain,” Lovelace said. “Because of the capitulation, it swept through the fast-fashion industry and sweatshop slave labor practices had to be completely shifted.”
Thereafter, he made it his mission to use business as a vehicle for shifting to positive externalities.
And as it turned out, crypto could take his vision to the next level with its social game element and economic incentives to bring about a completely novel socio-economic phenomenon.
“If you have a liquid asset class tied to a meme, and if you can drive consistent attention to that meme, it tends to drive aligned incentives to the distributed stakeholders,” Lovelace said.
Crypto, the perfect sandbox
As a crypto enthusiast, Lovelace witnessed the attack on digital assets as another iteration of powerful figures trying to squash an industry. “One of the reasons why big bankers and Wall Street attack crypto so intensely is because it’s a fundamental threat to their business models,” he said.
A main character in that attempt to tamp down crypto innovation is Gensler, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs, headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and taught at MIT. He made a perfect foil for Lovelace.
“Gensler has represented political forces that are largely corrupt and paid off by institutional banking forces,” Lovelace added. “Crypto is an inherent threat to the banking industry. They're doing everything they can to slow it down while they catch up and figure out how they're going to respond to it.”
An SEC spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Ride that bad boy. A UNFK prank.
But Gensler wasn’t always an enemy, said UNFK supporter Cozomo de' Medici.
“Gensler was a champion of crypto, but in 2021, as the markets took a beating, he conveniently changed his tune,” said de’ Medici, who writes the popular newsletter Medici Minutes. “Now it’s 2024, we’re in a roaring market as institutional capital is flooding in. And Gensler now seems more set than ever to bring destruction to crypto.”
Gensler isn’t the only problem, de’ Medici said.
“He is emblematic of a larger group of high-profile finance executives, who have shown their willingness to change their positions on crypto, only if it profits them,” he said. “And when they’re wrong or it doesn’t line their pockets, like Gensler, they set out to reverse the progress made so far in this movement.”
The SEC got off to a relatively late start in its approach to crypto, compared with its sister-agency the CFTC. There are definite retail investor protections needed in the digital asset space, and the SEC is working on those. It also is instrumental in regulating exchanges where assets trade such as the New York Stock Exchange, though it’s still to be seen how the SEC will classify crypto markets like Coinbase.
With a key focus on the entertainment factor, UNFK is mobilizing forces to fight for crypto in a fun way. They’re rolling out a series of pranks and initiatives including video games, large-scale dance parties and treasure hunts on the streets of big cities.
UNFK exists at a fascinating point right now in the crypto ecosystem. It seems to live at the intersection of the push from web2 to web3 while also being a media and gaming company. It’s fighting for crypto and subsequent causes by harnessing technology, art and music to playfully highlight corporate corruption.
In other words, making the good fight fun.