Law & Policy

The White House crypto summit perfectly summed up the problem with the current administration’s approach to crypto. Let’s talk about it… 🧵

Regulation and policy. Have a background in politics and competition economics. Decentralise, redistribute, rebel

https://paragraph.xyz/@technocrap

Micheal Saylor and David Bailey called for the US Government to buy more bitcoin for its strategic reserve. Owning some BTC in the reserve is not quite the problem here but it’s not great –

The problem is that this is just so so unnecessary right now. All these guys can think about is their pockets  – if the Government buys up a load more BTC, Saylor and Bailey get wealthier

I also don’t see how this is going to help the US economy, BTC is not gold, no matter how badly some of its fans want it to be. The way around this mess is not to simply buy more!

The Trump crew have barely been a power in 2 months and have already crashed the economy, spiked inflation and they don’t care! Trump wants to make himself and his class wealthier – buying up BTC and more crypto is not helping the lower classes, it’s not making anything better for the vast majority

But it gets a portion of his fanatical followers excited because they somehow think it’s going to help them. They might even then go and buy some themselves! DIRECTLY funding Trump and his cronies

None of the changes being made here are focused on helping regular working (and increasingly even middle) class people. Do not let the Trump admin’s embrace of crypto fool you into thinking they are good

Secondly, the CEO of Robinhood was there, Vlad Tenev. Tenev suggested tokenising traditional financial instruments such as equity in companies.

All this is going to do is give companies more ways to sell shares – while allowing them to sell more! None of this is what the blockchain was created for. These guys couldn’t give a shit about decentralisation they just want to take crypto and the blockchain and manipulate it into another instrument that prints them money while they tell you the reason you’re not rich like them is immigration. Don’t fall for it

So much of the discussion and recommendations were just a capitalist’s wet dream – buy more bitcoin, tokenise more assets blah blah blah

A consumer-focused approach. How can crypto be made safer and more accessible for the average person, how can more people be encouraged to use crypto and other digital assets, platforms etc. Unless there already is one the US needs a crypto/blockchain consumer group. An organisation which fights for and represents those using crypto as a decentralised currency or a short term investment rather than just as a store of wealth. That’s not to say it should be used as a store of wealth, but only catering to the crowd who are using it for that reason is problematic. Because crypto wasn’t built to be just that, another asset for the wealthy

Generally agree with these observations but what would you propose as an alternative approach? What would you like to see happening instead?