The crypto industry is making its mark on this year’s elections to the tune of some $119 million.
The funding has largely come from two companies — Coinbase and Ripple — which are funneling money into super PACs like Fairshake PAC, which is dedicated to “elevating pro-crypto candidates and attacking crypto skeptics,” according to Public Citizen.
At the 2024 bitcoin conference in Nashville in February, Trump — who called bitcoin “highly volatile and based on thin air” in 2019 — said he’d lay out a plan “to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.” Trump has already won the backing of several crypto enthusiasts, including his running mate JD Vance, who owns at least $250,000 in bitcoin.
Oh yeah, Paris Marx covered this on his Tech Won’t Save Us Podcast with Writer and Crypto Skeptic Molly White.
Not that it needs bearing repeating, but Fuck All Crypto Bros.
Crypto absolutely does have utility, but it’s not currency of the future.
People going against all crypto lack nuance, and people promoting crypto as solution to all problems are either naive or deceptive.
So then what do you think it does solve? “Blockchain not money” is a phrase popular with scams too.
Blockchain has more utility than crypto, but keeping focused on the latter, crypto may allow for anonymous (pseudonymous) transactions* that are also immutable, which can preserve your privacy and also allow you to financially support whoever government doesn’t want you to support - be it protesters, or your relatives in sanctioned jurisdictions, or, say, Ukrainian army if you are Russian**, or whatever.
It also gives you Internet money you’re in full control of - no one can freeze or seize your assets***.
*This does not apply if you use open ledger cryptocurrency and bought it from a traceable source, especially an exchange that requires KYC
**I am Russian, and I do not transfer money to Ukraine. Rest assured, dear FSB agent. But many people do, and they should be protected
***Assuming you use a trusted non-custodial wallet and adhere to basic DeFi hygiene if you use it. Also, sometimes, like when you do crime, inability to freeze your assets is bad. But I did happen to be in a situation when all my bank accounts were wrongfully arrested, and it took me 3 weeks to make my appeal approved by the court to restore access to my own money. Makes sense for me now to keep some money in cash and crypto.
As long as I have not seen blockchain do anything even remotely useful that couldn’t already be done better before without it, I will keep calling it useless.
