a newsletter by Molly White
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Citation Needed is an independent newsletter providing reporting and analysis on cryptocurrency, technology, and tech policy. Molly White explores stories that mainstream coverage often overlooks or fails to challenge, cutting through industry hype to examine how these systems actually affect people’s lives.

Citation Needed is published regularly and includes roundups of notable developments, analysis of regulatory and industry news, and occasional longer essays or investigations when a topic warrants deeper explanation.

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Who is Molly?

A photograph of Molly White sitting at a table in a video studio. She's a white woman with long brown hair that's shaved on one side, she has brown eyes, and she's wearing a black and white striped shirt and black blazer. There is a colorful cartoon background behind her. She's smiling and looking at someone out of frame.

Molly White is a researcher, software engineer, and prominent critic of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based projects. Besides Citation Needed, she is best known for her website Web3 is Going Just Great, which documents only some of the many disasters in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, and for her Follow the Crypto election spending tracker.

What others have said

Years spent online researching esoteric Internet cultures have made White a rare figure who can maneuver the technically complex, meme-filled world of crypto, translating it into digestible prose. Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post
Molly White [is] a remarkable young woman who is the sanest critic of the crypto frenzy. ... [S]he’s become the sharpest critic of crypto boosterism on the web. John Naughton, The Guardian
Molly White is the model of an indefatigable and intrepid journalist. ... Anyone who follows crypto scams is familiar with White’s work. Michael Hiltzik, LA Times
Molly White understands the crypto world. It’s crazy complicated, but she’s a great guide. Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

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Citation Needed is entirely reader-supported. All content is free and available to everyone, and it will remain that way. Paywalls suck and you will not find them here.

Support from paid subscribers makes it possible for me to continue doing this kind of research and writing independently. Thousands of readers subscribe to the newsletter, and many choose to support the work with a paid membership.

All readers receive the same content whether or not they subscribe, but paid members help sustain the project and gain access to additional features such as commenting.

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Besides brief quotations or interviews (which are clearly marked), all writing in this newsletter is by Molly White. She does not use AI tools to generate the writing or images in the newsletter (except when writing about AI and including examples of its output, which is clearly marked).

Please read Molly’s disclosures for her writing about cryptocurrency.