Regardless of the caricatures that have emerged, most...

Regardless of the caricatures that have emerged, most cryptocurrency holders are pretty normal people, with nuanced political beliefs and hopes for the future that go far beyond the tokens they hold in their digital wallets.

#CitationNeeded #crypto #CryptoLobby #USpolitics #USpol

But it is also important to separate the bitcoin billionaires and the wealthy executives in the cryptocurrency industry from the much larger group of people that industry is claiming are mobilizing on their behalf. As I noted a few weeks ago:

(Quoted tweet): it's interesting to me that even some on the more ideological end of crypto see billionaire executives and VCs spending money on politicians and go "yes, good, they're fighting for me"

While some have indeed chosen to align with those executives, either believing what they say about fighting for broad crypto freedoms or in apparent hopes of trickle-down policies that will benefit them too, others recognize that executives fighting to install politicians they think will help their businesses are well divorced from their own interests. Even some of the wealthy and powerful in the space, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have noted that the industry’s priorities seem misplaced, focusing far more on money than on related and important political issues around freedom and privacy that the industry claims to champion.

The average cryptocurrency holder — those people who make up the majority of the “52 million” or “18 million” or whatever the actual number of holders may be — is not likely to be a single-issue voter. Many people who hold crypto — a group, I will note, of which I am a part!e — probably don’t identify as crypto advocates at all. They’re worried about the climate, or their right to own firearms, or the safety and support of transgender people, or the various wars and genocides playing out across the globe with the support of the United States, or reducing corporate taxes, or their ability to obtain an abortion or retain access to contraceptives, or access to school vouchers, or any of the many other issues that factor in when people choose which candidates to support and oppose.

Because we are wanting of any proper survey data, I am left to merely hazard an informed guess that few crypto holders (self-identified advocates or otherwise) are willing to set aside all of their other political beliefs and priorities in favor of a candidate’s crypto stance. Regardless of the caricatures that have emerged, most cryptocurrency holders are pretty normal people, with nuanced political beliefs and hopes for the future that go far beyond the tokens they hold in their digital wallets.

Like 29 Jul 2024 at 23:07 | Open on hachyderm.io

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Molly White

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#CitationNeeded #crypto #CryptoLobby #USpolitics #USpol

29 Jul 2024 at 23:08 | Open on hachyderm.io

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