Yves here. Kamala shamelessly pandering to crypto touts is so depressing. Crypto is among other things the vehicle that has allowed for more and bigger ransomware payoffs, encouraging more attempts. Its use cases are tax evasion, other criminal conduct, and speculation. None of these are socially positive.
Note this is another case of Kamala trying to out-do Trump in catering to a pet constituency, as she did with emulating his proposal to exempt tips from income tax.
By Jake Johnson, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
“Harris’ promise to balance the industry’s interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction,” said the executive director of the Revolving Door Project. “Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent.”
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris‘ increasingly open embrace of cryptocurrency during her 2024 bid for the White House has sparked alarm among progressives, who have pointed to the still-nascent industry’s pervasive fraud and opposition to regulatory guardrails as all the evidence the vice president should need to end her courtship of the sector.
Semafor reported Thursday that in addition to speaking publicly about “a friendlier approach to cryptocurrency than President Joe Biden,” Harris is “dispatching aides to court well-heeled crypto investors and their Democratic allies in Congress.”
“Harris debuted her newly crypto-coded message in remarks to Wall Street donors this past weekend,” the outlet added, “and her campaign’s quiet work with crypto allies indicates that she sees a space to compete on that turf with former President Donald Trump—who this month endorsed a still-unclear crypto platform launched by his sons.”
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said earlier this week that he believes cryptocurrencies have “a great future” and suggested the U.S. could pay off the national debt with digital assets. Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have donated to Trump’s campaign—contributions “motivated by areas like crypto and AI regulation,” Axiosreported.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), is friendly with the crypto industry and personally owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin.
Harris, for her part, gave a nod to the cryptocurrency industry during a major economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, saying she wants the U.S. to “remain dominant” in “emerging technologies” such as the blockchain.
Harris’ economic policy platform states that, if elected in November, she would “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.”
Billionaire investor and outspoken Harris supporter Mark Cuban told Semafor that he intends to visit Capitol Hill to “personally lobby lawmakers on any major crypto bill that gets a vote in the future, whether it’s industry-favorable or not.”
In a statement earlier this week, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) warned that the Harris campaign’s “acquiescence” to crypto would “lead to disaster.”
“The cryptocurrency industry has doggedly pursued its mission to flout longstanding securities laws and robust SEC oversight,” said Jeff Hauser, RDP’s executive director. “Weak regulation is crucial to the industry’s continued business strategy of serving as a conduit for money laundering, assisting ransomware rings, terrorist organizations, and those importing fentanyl.”
“The industry has defiantly moved past the stench of Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud-backed influence campaign to flood key congressional races with cash in a transparent attempt to strongarm Democrats into acquiescing to their demands,” he continued. “Acceding would not only set the dangerous precedent that motivated industries can purchase the regulatory framework that best suits their interest, but also open Americans to fraud, increased ransomware, and other illicit behavior pervasive across the cryptocurrency industry.”
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, toldThe Washington Post on Thursday that while he gets that Harris “doesn’t want to alienate the crypto folks,” the federal government “should not be encouraging speculation in this stuff.”
“This is just gambling,” said Baker. “I don’t think we need to make it easier to do illegal transactions—blackmailing, drug dealing, whatever.”
Crypto industry spending on federal lobbying surged to an all-time high of $24.7 million in 2023, according toOpenSecrets, and the cash blitz has continued this year as major digital currency asset players and their congressional allies in both parties fight off regulatory efforts.
The industry has also spent big on the 2024 elections: An analysis released last month by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that crypto firms have poured more than $119 million directly into federal elections so far this year, making them “by far the dominant corporate political spenders.”
“Crypto-influenced lawmakers bending over backwards to benefit Big Crypto means weaker protections preventing individual consumers from being defrauded by reckless crypto scams—and softened regulations protecting our financial system from destructive innovations that exploit consumers while enriching insiders,” Public Citizen said at the time. “The influence of Big Crypto is more evidence a constitutional amendment is needed to overturn Citizens United—and restore our democracy to one where people call the shots, not corporations.”
Hauser also expressed concerns about “the idea that crypto insiders would have any sway in policymaking,” which he warned would “just further put Americans in harm’s way, once again disproportionately harming the poor and communities of color.”
“Harris’ promise to balance the industry’s interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction,” said Hauser. “Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent. The rampant fraud and criminal behavior in the very young industry—not just from FTX, but from Binance, OneCoin, Digital Currency Group, and countless others—is unprecedented in recent American history.”
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If you look at crypto as a way for the PMC to take a cut of organized crime, and to hide their own little criminal activities, it starts to make a lot more sense.
Or maybe it is Harris wanting to look hip,groovy and cool, just like Adams wanted to do in NYC.
Any intelligent self-aware PMCer would have to know that he-she will never make enough money to participate in organized crime through the crypto vehicle. Those who favor it for themselves have to be viewing it as ” hail Mary lottery tickets”.
Perhaps it is worth repeating the No Crypto Pledge . . .
I pledge, on my honor, that I will not use crypto or invest in crypto, and that I will not tolerate those who do.
We should expect full throated bipartisan support for crypto as long as it remains the best way to move money in a private manner. Also, let us not forget the insane amounts of money crypto threw at the last election.
SBF for Treasury!
Yes, the immediate and successful effort to avoid investigating SBF’s political contributions was the kind bi-partisan consensus we’ve come to expect.
Crypto might indeed be a place to hide criminal activity. Yet whenever I’ve listened to a Crypto supporter they usually want two things: their money should be independent from the government, as well as any central bank.
I’m not sure exactly what they mean. However, the EU and US want to freeze, if not confiscate €300 billion of Russian assets, or the interest earned by that money and give it to Ukraine. I think Putin might wish Russia’s money was in crypto instead.
Moreover, it is very easy for the government to freeze assets of anyone involved in protests, demonstrations, strikes, or other forms of dissent.
There’s no guarantee the future will offer more freedom than the past.
Crypto = ponzi scheme. Crypto is subject to whipsaw price volatility. Crypto is subject to quick and permanent “going to zero” valuation. Seems to me crypto makes a poor choice as a place to stash your capital, and I’m guessing Mr Putin may see it that way as well.
I do not in any way endorse investing in crypto. Yet, Russia’s money is frozen which is as good as zero now. The Canadian government, using facial recognition, identified striking truckers and froze their accounts. Meaning they couldn’t pay a mortgage or even buy gas.
Things could get ugly for those who disagree with the government. Some people think crypto is the solution.
The real threat to the economy imo is shadow banking which is unregulated, nobody really knows what they’re doing, or exactly how big it is.
It was a shadow bank (LTC) that nearly collapsed the economy in 1998 and in the 2008 financial crisis the prominent names like AIG, Lehman Brothers, and GE Capital and many others were all involved in shadow banking. Shadow banking is certainly much larger now than it was in 2008 and much bigger than the real banking system, and still unregulated–Dodd Frank does not touch shadow banking. I don’t expect Harris to talk about shadow banks.
Actually under crypto it would be worse.
Let’s says Russia’s billions are in crypto. Then, suddenly out on nowhere – it’s gone. So sorry your wallet got hacked.
Despite what the crypto cultists may say, security is a huge issue. Having the money in crypto would be a tailor made solution to the West’s problem. Just steal the money with little to no repercussions.
Sure, but getting back to the article which is about Harris and the fact she would, “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.”
Imo, shadow banks are more important and Harris should be talking about regulating them. She prefers “protecting” rather than “regulating.” I think it’s crucial she talk about shadow banks: Blackstone, BlackRock, private equity, hedge funds et al, and comprehensive regulations but that’s not gonna happen.
Independent from the gubmint and central bank, but entirely dependent on an algorithm (run by…?) for existence.
What could possibly go wrong?
From her remarks in Pittsburgh,
These remarks seem hugely pandering, and ignore what has happened to factory towns over the past 50 years. Why is the Democratic establishment so, so afraid to point out the truth? To state plainly, that globalization is supremely destabilizing, that NAFTA et al. were hugely regressive — is it so hard to admit what the rest of America already knows? And — that many of these changes are likely irreversible. This is what I find so hugely infuriating — the refusal to state a commonplace.
Another set of empty words by Kamala.
The headline “progressives sound alarm..” What progressives? Just like the election message from Kamala that says she’ll cut taxes for the “middle class”. No definition of middle class.
Biden said middle class includes those that make 400K per year. The jobs of the future in the US seem to be law, law enforcement, government bureaucratic jobs, unnecessary health care, pointless education, finance and marketing and defense.
Because they had a hand in making it happen.
They’re not afraid, except maybe of being exposed for who they really are. They just don’t want to own up to it and take any responsibility.
Is there a place I can complain to, or am I just an old man yelling at clouds, but…
…crypto means secret, hidden in ancient Greek. Cryptology and cryptography are “industries” that allow me to do my work. Cryptocurrency is not really crypto, in the same sense of the word; the name is used because technically some bitcoins use cryptographic hashes as “proof of work”. And maybe because some people believe that their cryptocurrency is “anonymous” (a.k.a. your identity is hidden.
When it comes to owner ship and transactions, cryptocurrencies that use blockhains are less crypto than any other currency. Their very existence is based on a shared, openly distributed ledger for bookkeeping and deciding who owns what.
So could we, please, try to avoid shortening the word cryptocurrency to it’s least descriptive part which actually has an earlier, well defined meaning? After all, it’s neither crypto nor currency, but at least people use it like it was the latter.
I find this blockchain/cryptocurrency conjoined twin a little confusing. This “…openly distributed ledger of bookkeeping…” wherein every exchange is tracked and open to scrutiny. How is it, for example, that a digital fraudster can blackmail Maersk and force it to make the payoff in cryptocurrency, yet any trace of that transaction disappears into the aether? Blockchain: still a technology in search a mission.
The ledger is open but the identity of the person behind each transaction is not. That is only known to the exchange. So, the fraudster asks for their payoff to be sent to a specific address, and then they find an exchange with loose KYC rules to then transfer the sum to another wallet, and repeat this process. Most exchanges are now fairly strict about KYC, so this is, I gather, increasingly difficult to pull off.
You’ve come to the right place amigo. Some time ago Yves (or maybe Lambert?) coined the equation “blockchain = prosecution futures” precisely because of the ‘distributed ledger’ that is part and parcel of blockchain technology. As a (reluctantly former) O. F. I. T. (Old Fart-in-training) I can commiserate about the lazy, indiscriminate contractions and abbreviations that are so prevalent in today’s ’newspeak’. I guess Time=Money (>scholarship). Sigh.
For your reference, all “XXX = yyy futures” formulations are from your truly. One of my early uses was when a gym brought in some new cardio equipment that obviously put rotational forces on the knee. I designed that “knee replacement futures”.
Gratefully noted. Please keep ‘em coming!
No worries for KH, no matter what, the D faithful and D “progressives” will vote for Joyful Genocide, in yet another “historic” election to “save democracy”. Whether the “lawmakers” and polticos are influenced by Ponzi rackets, fraudsters, or legally bribed by oligarchy’s BigMoney, the end result is still the same: oligarchy.
When Bill Clinton signed the CFMA, FSMA, NAFTA, Crime Bill etc etc. he was reprotedly warned that he was “alienating his base”. He replied with his trademark chuckle “whadda they gonna do? vote Republican?”
The cruel joke is on us. Fool folks once, fool folks a dozen times…The plebs will do as they are instructed as usual.
i have said for years, what bill clinton did, most likely cannot be reversed at least conventionally, and the u.s.a. might be the one who get decolonized.
And it was not just ol’ Bubba, he had bipartisan support from the so-called opposition. Another great example of the Bipartisan Consensus.
He had to work very hard to achieve that “bipartisan support”. Browbeating, bribing, various forms of moral and intellectual extortion against the legacy Newish Dealish Democrats in office.
There was a faction of Democrats which supported NAFTA and etc. I used to call them the New Yuppie Scumocrats. The so-called “bipartisan coalition” for NAFTA was composed of Republicans and New Yuppie Scumocrats. Just enough Newish Dealish Democrats were browbeaten or bribed or extorted or otherwise pressured to join that coalition to get it called a “bipartisan” coalition by Free Trade Hasbarists and Clintonites.
John MaCarthur wrote a book about it.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3944541M/The_selling_of_free_trade
It’s all very Keyser Söze, the cozy relationship crypto has all of the sudden. My buddy from Tucson is here and enjoys watching F1 racing and prominently placed are crypto.com adverts on the race courses, along with ads for Rolex and other high end sponsors.
My take is that Wall*Street invented it as a convenient lackey to blame things on when things come a cropper, and a great way to suck money in that was never going into stocks & bonds, ah~ youth must be served medium well and a bit charred on the edges.
Aside from being used to facilitate ransomware payments, what can crypto do that a Visa card can’t, in terms of what it can be used for?
Maybe to facilitate an illegal drug deal, Albanian hookers booking, or an off the books arms deal. it could have some limited use aside from being the go between in graft.
My opinion is that the main virtue of bitcoin is that it cannot be taken from its owner except by coercive means. Put another way, it’s not susceptible to “cancellation” by another party. Unlike gold and silver, art objects, real estate, and most other objects of value, bitcoin is extremely portable, which makes it even more resistant to government confiscation. So it’s easy to see its appeal to people who don’t have a lot of trust in government, a notion that is probably not too foreign to many of us here.
Also, it’s scarcity tends to make it proof against inflation, similar to precious metals and gems and coastal real estate. On the other hand, bitcoin’s price is obviously subject to market forces, just like those other assets, so any proof against inflation may only be in the long run.
Personally, I have no idea what all these crypto “interests” are that are supposedly lobbying government. It seems to me that bitcoin could get along very well with just some exchanges, similar to currency exchanges, to facilitate converting dollars and rupees into bitcoin and vice versa, and some software producers of bitcoin wallets, which are almost all free to any user. The only thing I can see that might require lobbying is to keep governments from interfering with the unimpeded use of bitcoin.
Your naivete is showing. What is its use if no one will buy it because using it is criminalized? It is already of virtually no use in practice, as in not tradable into real world goods. It has to be sold for a government-legtimated currency before you can do anything with it. And you effectively admit the necessity of exchanges.
If you hold it off an exchange you are vulnerable to govenment seizure of your devices. That can happpen without a warrant at borders or with a warrant in the US.
It is not impossible that these currencies will become outlawed or their transactions on exchanges heavily taxed due to environmentally destructive energy use.
As it happens, there are bitcoin aficionados who make a point of “living on a bitcoin standard”, paying for everything, food, rent, energy, etc., with bitcoin. Apparently there are many merchants who will accept payment directly in bitcoin, while other purchases can be made through apps that handle the transfer of bitcoin into government currency — I think it’s a bit like being able to making a payment with an Amazon gift certificate.
It is inaccurate to say that government seizure of a device that allows for paying and receiving bitcoin would cause a loss of one’s bitcoin, which does not exist on any device but exists, like most of our money these days, in an electronic ledger.
This does nothing to address my fundamental criticism, that bitcoin and crypto are socially destructive.
Your defense, which lacks supporting links as we require for presentation of things alleged to be facts that are not widely known or accepted, is effectively Making Shit Up. There are a few podcasters/YouTubers making this claim. They seem not to be in the US, for starters. There are also survivalists who live off the land too. That does not make it realistic, much the less other than rare and useful mainly as a stunt to make money from true believers.
On top of that, your advocacy skips over the fact that any merchant accepting bitcoin can be presumed to be engaging in tax fraud, as in not paying income or sales/VAT on these transactions. So we are to celebrate, per you, parties stealing from their communities via using government services where they live (at a minimum, lighted streets, roads and pavements, police protection) and not paying for them? That’s before getting to the fact that more acceptance of crypto enables criminal activity, from ransomware to drug dealing to fencing stolen goods.
Power and water facilities do not accept bitcoin in the US and most advanced economies. Nor do tax authorities. Or airlines or rail lines or public transportation systems. I had a difficult time getting good workmen (particularly for car repair). Requiring them to take bitcoin would have reduced the candidate pool to zero.
It would be impossible to buy anything in the real world where I am now either. This is a very cash driven economy and cash = baht.
In reality, your candidates are saying they have parties who act as an exchange and turn bitcoin into fiat for them to live legally.
As for having the government seize your devices, most people keep their passwords on devices. The alternative is on paper. Cops also seize records when executing warrants, in case you did not work that out.
This article covers people who merely lose crypto, as opposed to seizing devices or records with passwords on them: https://www.wired.com/story/i-lost-17000-dollars-crypto-how-to-avoid/./ The article strongly advocates using a wallet. Governments have requires exchanges to hand over customer information for the purpose of tax enforcement.
This also urinates on any climate policies. Not that democrats are serious about that anyway.
Centrists and Republicans seem to think Harris is a “liberal”. If she wins, I generally expect her to govern a bit to the right of Biden – even if Dems take the House & Senate.
Smart nations will ban cryptocurrencies entirely. That’s why America’s leaders are for them.
Kamala Harris is also supported by current and former executives of Uber — David Plouffe and Tony West. So I expect the spread of gig work and scheduling flexibility brought to you by her tech bros in Silicon Valley.
Cheer up, we might be seeing the birth of the United Sillicon of America with Bitcoin as legal tender.
I see two sides of the crypto revolution. There is the positive side that with zero knowledge proofs you could have a distributed digital identity where you control who has access to what information. Thus you could prove that you have whatever right, buy alcohol, drive a car, vote, spend money from a particular account without having to give up any more information about yourself than necessary. That doesn’t look to be where most of this is going as the benefits are distributed and longer term. Also rather than a CBDC, it is looking more like a mix of blockchains that are interoperable and thus you might have Visa running one chain, your insurance company on another, drivers license on some government run chain, your phone, social media, TV dependent on yet another. All tracking you and monitored by AI and in most cases you won’t even know that is how this back end is run, because honestly it won’t be that different from how things are now just more “efficient”. Who has the ability to access the info and has control over those systems is yet to be determined. Its looking like a technocracy made up more of the same public private partnerships, which I guess is now being included in the “Joy”.