Thursday, May 19, 2022

One last note on crypto -- “He’s asking for an insurrection against the anti-bitcoiners!”

At least for a while.

I want to be really careful about generalizing here. There are certainly people on the left who are into crypto and NFTs and the rest of web3. It has become more difficult to reconcile liberal values with the underlying libertarianism of that world, but it is still possible. Add to that loads of apolitical people who have gotten sucked in by the promise of easy money and/or by the excitement of the next big thing. In that sense, we are talking about a fairly diverse crowd. That said, web3 skews heavily conservative with particularly strong ties to the far right including the extreme far right.
You'll notice this tweet isn't loading properly. It appears that all of Mandel's bitcoin tweets have been deleted. Fortunately, we still have some remnants. 
And from the Independent:
One tweet posted two days after Christmas took the candidate’s support of the currency to the next level, however. In a tweet sent early Monday evening, Mr Mandel wrote that his campaign was centered on making Ohio a “pro-God, pro-family, pro-bitcoin state”, and depicted a supposed divide in America between “States that submit to the authority of Almighty God [and] states that don’t” as well as “States that invest in #bitcoin infrastructure [and] states that won’t”.

We've already quoted Emily Shugerman's excellent Daily Beast article at length, but we didn't get to the political aspect, which is one of the best parts:

If you were looking to join the cult of crypto, Bitcoin 2022 was the place to do it. The conference was a four-day extravaganza dedicated to the world’s oldest and most expensive cryptocurrency, and it promised to be a “pilgrimage for those seeking greater freedom and individual sovereignty.” Speakers ranged from Jordan Peterson, the controversial psychologist and anti-political-correctness firebrand, to NFL quarterback and anti-vaxxer Aaron Rodgers. The attendees were a mix of bitcoin die-hards, casual investors, and finance and tech bros looking to profit off the latest trend.

...

If the adherents to the bitcoin gospel have shared core beliefs, they also have common enemies: old-guard billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, for criticizing bitcoin; Elizabeth Warren for her insistence on regulation; and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a newer target for his crackdown on the anti-vaxx trucker protests.

Perhaps no one put as fine a point on this as Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur and Trump supporter. At his keynote Thursday, Thiel presented a PowerPoint of the men he deemed “enemies” of bitcoin: Buffett, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink—all of whom have dismissed it as a passing fad.

“This is what we have to fight for bitcoin to go 10x,” Thiel declared, then called Buffett a “sociopathic grandpa.” The crowd, which has been silent for most of the speech, noticeably perked up.

“He’s asking for an insurrection against the anti-bitcoiners!” the man behind me said excitedly, to no one in particular.

(If Shugerman ever writes a script about crypto, she should cut this line. It's a bit on-the-nose for the screen.)

The Miami conference reflected a larger phenomenon.
And it gets worse.

Much worse.
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