Vitalik Buterin pfp
Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
The risk of politician coins comes from the fact that they are such a perfect bribery vehicle. If a politician issues a coin, you do not even need to send *them* any coins to give them money. Instead, you just buy and hold the coin, and this increases the value of their holdings passively. Furthermore, there is deniability: holding the coin is, in financial effect, a linear combination of donating to the issuer and gambling. Hence you can intend to do the former but when challenged claim that you are doing the latter. You can even hold the coin privately, and show that you are holding it to whoever; you do not need any zero knowledge proofs, you just send a test transaction. This is all risky to democracy, for reasons similar to what I wrote in https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/08/16/voting3.html and elsewhere. TLDR: the economic arguments for why markets are so great for "regular" goods and services do not extend to "markets for political influence". I recommend politicians do not go down this path.
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Chinmay 🕹️🍿 pfp
Chinmay 🕹️🍿
@chinmay.eth
Are you suggesting that all politicians are banned from launching memecoins? If so, how about lobbyists or news reporters? Where do we draw the line?
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
That this question even comes up shows how far the norm violations of the last few years have shifted the Overton window on this topic. We’ve had heuristics and hard rules for handling conflicts of interest (or the perception thereof) for decades if not longer, and they remain sensible and as needed as ever, ceteris paribus. I’m not even a politician, lobbyist, or journalist, and even I am prohibited from holding most stocks, for example, because of a very remote risk of conflict of interest. That mechanism has prevented considerable abuse over the years, which used to erode trust in society before those rules were enacted. It’s really weird to me that we even have to spell out that yes, elected officials should not be using their position to inside trade nor take bribes nor use their position to pursue lucrative side hustles, all of which are conveniently enabled by the issuance of meme coins bearing their name.
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Chinmay 🕹️🍿 pfp
Chinmay 🕹️🍿
@chinmay.eth
It's sad but true.
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