Crypto For Lefties, Part One

Crypto came out of an Anarchist community, and that at once put it offside with Lefties. Doesn’t Anarchism allow the rich to plunder to their heart’s content? Bitcoin as ‘Freedom Money’ sounds a lot like ‘Rich-Wanker-Avoid-Taxes Money’. The problem is that this is way too simplistic. Would Lefties eschew e-mail? These things are tools. Overlook at your own peril.

I’m not a Leftie myself, but I find myself on their side of many issues, and I was thinking recently that it is a shame so few Lefties make use of crypto.

So, I’m writing this post specifically with Progressives in mind. I’ll assume that the reader doesn’t know much about crypto and doesn’t care, but is open to using it, so long as I can show that it’s worthwhile and doesn’t harm others.

Being open-minded about money

We tend to think a lot about money, but never about the nature of money itself.

Say you helped a friend move some furniture, and she paid you a gold coin; would you turn it down? Say you were holidaying in Zimbabwe, and your hotel offered you a refund in Zimbabwean dollars¹ or U.S. dollars, which would you choose? These examples uncover certain basic facts about money:

1. There is better and worse money
2. People choose better money, when given a choice
3. Governments often push worse money

Why would you think otherwise? Everything you think about money boils down to ‘that’s just the way it is’. As a Progressive, you know the danger in such thinking.

In 2007, one man (or woman) decided that ‘just the way it is’ should be ‘just the way it was’. Satoshi Nakamoto designed the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC),² from an urge to to fix flaws in all existing forms of money. Satoshi was a very rare mix of computer scientist and economist.³ It’s beyond the scope of this post to go into these flaws and Satoshi’s fixes. Suffice to say, at the most general level, there are three reasons in favor of using crypto:

1. Anyone can send to anyone else without political interference.
2. The money does not devalue in the long run.
3. No banks need to be involved.

Every Cryptopian⁴ — no matter how convoluted his arguments become— uses crypto for some or all of these basic reasons.

Reason (1) is easy to grasp. You need to be sure that you can send money to anyone, be she next door or in the Bahamas. It’s too late when genuine Fascists come to power. The time to dig flood-relief channels is before the flood. Reason (2) is less intuitive. Think of holding cash like holding an ice cube. Every year, the banks print more money, give most of it to their richest customers, and the outcome is that, unless you have an especially generous boss who gives you a 5% pay-rise per year, you are falling behind. Crypto is crafted to be scarce and hold its value. It’s reason (3), however, whereby Lefties really dropped the ball. Crypto bypasses banks. It replaces the safe system of centralized, corporate-owned databases, with the safe system of decentralized, volunteer-run software checking every single transaction by the same set of rules. This is a true alternative to banks. It works. I can’t believe how little interest there has been from the Progressive community. They would rather whine about shop-keepers putting too much margin on eggs.

It would be silly of me to try to convert you from skeptic to believer in 1000 words. All I am trying to do is get you to realize the truth of this hypothetical:

Unless you can prove that crypto has failed at its design-goals, it is wise to try it.

They're out-organizing us!

There’s something else at the back of my mind. I’m sad that crypto isn’t used more by Lefties because there’s a use-case which sundrily suits them. Crypto is great for grassroots projects. You might be selling wares at a Farmer’s Market, or be leading a team guarding tern-nests at the beach which gets on-the-spot donations from passers-by.

The payment-options to which you will default are unavoidable. You can’t buck the system too much and expect to survive. They’re also problematic. Cash? Nice, but it’s always tempting for thieves. Credit cards? High fees and, quite frankly, you’re celebrating usury. Apps like Venmo and Cash App are just an extra layer of surveillance on top of credit cards. Paypal is notorious for censorship. Google Pay? Why don’t you just join the C.I.A. while you’re at it.

Crypto is safe, fast, theft-proof,⁵ and has low fees. Crypto itself is a grassroots movement. Malcolm X would have used crypto.

But... Trump!

“A grassroots movement?” you say. “But… the Trump family! Elon Musk! Wall Street! [etc.]” It’s hard to shake the image of crypto as a kind of play-money for billionaires. I’m sure also that you have had crypto’s environmental harm drummed into you. That’s a nuanced discussion. We’ll get to that. Crypto is a tool. Many nerds share your worries. Some of those nerds have tweaked crypto to be more progressive-aligned. Bitcoin (BTC) isn’t the only game in town. You need to find your subgenre. I’ll let you know about the ‘top three cryptos for Lefties’ next post.