Prof Links Rise of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies to ‘White Nationalism’
“Bitcoin Bet Pays Off for the Racist Right”
Who listens to an argument like this and takes it seriously?
Campus Reform reports:
Professor links Bitcoin to ‘far right’ nationalists. Expert Peter McCormack discusses why that might be wrong.
Elon University professor Megan Squire recently teamed up with Southern Poverty Law Center spokesman Michael Edison Hayden to publish an article linking the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, to the rise of “[W]hite nationalism.”
According to their analysis piece, “White supremacists embraced cryptocurrency early in its development, and in some cases produced million-dollar profits through the technology, reshaping the racist right in radical ways, a Hatewatch analysis found,” the writers’ Dec. 9 article states.
The online analysis piece also contains a graphic, “Bitcoin Bet Pays Off for the Racist Right,” which details the amount of Bitcoin sent and received by prominent figures that identify as “Alt-Right.”
“A significant number of people who started in libertarian online spaces” began to support “the pro-fascist ideology of the ‘alt-right’ movement during the rise of Trump,” Squire and Hayden write.
The article notes that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin are alleged “white nationalists” and “far right” extremists.
Campus Reform asked Squire why only right-wing extremist groups were represented in the article and if this phenomenon is observed with other ideological extremist groups.
“This article was for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, so we focused on groups and individuals that are of interest to that organization: those who promote hate, bigotry, and extremism,” Squire replied.
A common concern within the Bitcoin community is the impending collapse of the US dollar, as well as the financial and authoritarian impacts the central banking system has had on humanity. The article links these concerns to anti-semitism, noting a “Neo-Nazi” publication that accepts Bitcoin donations so they can “can continue to fight the Jew-owned banking empire.”
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Comments
White Nationalism can do so much; it’s truly amazing to behold.
“Bitcoin Bet Pays Off for the Racist Right”
You’re just jealous.
Then again, Marxism is nothing but the political expression of jealousy.
Once again, I missed the boat on all these white privileges. Maybe I’m not far right enough to have bought Bitcoin when it was dirt cheap.
Well, that’s the strength of crypto that everyone always thinks of first. But even now, in the “non-startup” phase, the strength of crypto (according to its devotees) is that it serves as an independent repository that lets you retain your wealth despite either ignorant or malicious manipulation of the common fiat money supply. And they don’t like that… because it means that somewhere, some Marxist won’t get his mansion.
When the surest and easiest path for advancing one’s career in the academy is finding “‘far right’ nationalists” under every bed, then they will be found.
After all, you’ve had academic mediocrities pounding the “race, class gender” drum for decades now but, perhaps there are so many drum-pounders that this is no longer much of a path to recognition and tenure?
Presumably there’s often been some reward in promoting fashionable nonsense in the academy, especially for those lacking the talent to do honest scholarship. Yet as this has brought increasing rewards it has shut out most other paths to a successful academic career, to the point where presenting honest scholarship has become not merely unrewarding but career-threatening.
Where in the academy would one now find those with the courage, clear-sightedness and ability to restore rigor and integrity to the academic enterprise?
1) We’re going to pervert our fiat economic system that we give you, so we can do anything from inconvenience a targeted citizen to destroy his wealth and crush him. It’s our system… if you don’t like it, create your own.
2) ZOMG, they created their own!
What’s missing here, of course, is any data showing that “neo-Nazis and anti-Semites” (which to me means “Antifa and Democrat Party squad members,” but let’s use their definition just for argument) are statistically over-represented in the holders of crypto. All this paper says is that “we found a lot of people we don’t like who also hold crypto.”
Well, they could say the same thing about guns, trucks, and Ranger Coffee. (They’d probably get their strongest statistics out of the coffee.)
They could also say the same thing about Mormon Temples, Mar-a-Lago habitués, and every local Republican Club in America, but so what? At that point, the proper response is, “FU. We already know you hate us. Deal with it.”
3) that does absolutely nothing to prevent any of 1) because all the taxman has to do is ask you (and Al Capone) “Show me where you got the income to buy that mansion / shack / caviar / crust of bread / etc. Can’t show me? Busted!”
There are some deep logical flaws here. Correlation does not show causality. It is true that Bitcoin was new, so by definition there were early adopters; both as bitcoin miners and as bitcoin holders. The one logical group of people who would be early adopters of a cryptocurrency would be people who do not want the Federal Government to track their transactions, such as drug dealers or sex workers or organized crime. There is no evidence one way or the other, that Alt-right would use cryptocurrency more than Alt-left groups. We just don’t know, and unless someone funds the research more broadly than what the Southern Poverty Law Center has funded, we will never know.