Exponential Episode 8 with the Use Case Founders

In a space that moves at the speed of Twitter and trades on memes, launching a print magazine about crypto feels almost radical. But for veteran journalists Zack Seward and Joon Ian Wong, that’s exactly the point. Their new project, Use Case, is a new publication designed to document the parts of crypto that actually matter — the systems that work, the ideas that endure, and the people building things with real-world impact.

“Crypto to me is wonderfully ambivalent,” Zack says. “There’s a lot of contradiction. That’s where the most interesting stories live.”

Born from a conversation on a boat in Bangkok, Use Case aims to be what the industry lacks: a thoughtful, credible artifact that treats crypto not as hype or headline fodder, but as a serious cultural and technological shift.

With contributors ranging from essayists to illustrators, the first issue blends deep reporting with original art and longform storytelling. 

Telling the story that hasn’t been told

Mainstream coverage of crypto, Joon argues, tends to swing between “true crime exposés and JPMorgan press releases.” The real story — of developers, protocol quirks, unintended consequences, and structural change — rarely makes it past the noise. Use Case sets out to change that, drawing inspiration from the early days of Wired, when long reads helped make sense of the internet’s strange new frontier.

Highlights of the debut issue include a newly uncovered history of early Bitcoin miners, a graphic novel adaptation of a sci-fi work by Cornell cryptographer Ari Juels, and an essay by historian Niall Ferguson exploring whether stablecoins could trigger “crypto dollarization.” There’s also a deep dive into memecoins, examining how they monetize attention and culture, often with unintended fallout.

“Too often in crypto, narratives shift overnight,” Zack says. “We wanted to ask: what actually deserves a closer look?”

Stability, tension, and what comes next

One of the core throughlines of this episode is that stablecoins, once considered little more than casino chips for crypto trading, are now emerging as the infrastructure for a new global payments system. That shift, Zack notes, comes with built-in contradictions. “The killer app might be a highly mediated financial product backed by Wall Street,” he says. “That doesn’t exactly align with the original vision of decentralized, peer-to-peer money.”

It’s this tension — between ideals and outcomes, cypherpunks and institutions — that makes the space so compelling to document. Rather than smoothing over these contradictions, Use Case leans into them, asking who’s really shaping the future of finance.

Looking ahead, both Zack and Joon are keeping an eye on two key trends: the growing use of stablecoins in FX markets, and the rise of “corporate chains” as companies like Stripe and Circle move to own more of the blockchain stack. In both cases, the questions of power, control, and credibility remain unresolved — which is exactly why they make good stories.

“The crypto story has never really had a fair shake,” Joon says. “The story has never been told well by people who know the story.”