Big Crypto is now spending more on US elections than any other industry
www.businessinsider.com
Crypto companies have already funneled some $119 million into federal elections, according to data from Public Citizen.

The crypto industry is making its mark on this year’s elections to the tune of some $119 million.

The funding has largely come from two companies — Coinbase and Ripple — which are funneling money into super PACs like Fairshake PAC, which is dedicated to “elevating pro-crypto candidates and attacking crypto skeptics,” according to Public Citizen.

At the 2024 bitcoin conference in Nashville in February, Trump — who called bitcoin “highly volatile and based on thin air” in 2019 — said he’d lay out a plan “to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.” Trump has already won the backing of several crypto enthusiasts, including his running mate JD Vance, who owns at least $250,000 in bitcoin.

  • JiveTurkey@lemmy.world
    1306·
    3 months ago

    The new currency that’s backed by the old currency and uses a shit ton more electricity. What a time to be alive.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          214·
          3 months ago

          Without old currency denomination. But as soon as you can start clearing debts with crypto, its effectively a third-party printable currency that the federal government has endorsed.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              3 months ago

              It’s “paying loans and fees with crypto”. Specifically, “paying government loans and fees”, which makes the state an insatiable consumer of a third-party currency and gives it real implicit value.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        71·
        3 months ago

        The entire crypto industry is basically propped up by the existence of Tether, which is (notionally) backed by the US dollar.

        Without Tether you lose any remaining institutional investment. Big companies want to be able to trade in crypto but they don’t want to hold crypto, because it’s volatile, and convertong fiat to crypto takes too long for effective trading. Tether is the middle man.

        So yes, since Tether basically facilitates all meaningful crypto trading, and Tether is supposedly just tokenized USD, their statement about crypto being backed by the old money is perfectly cromulent.

      • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
        513·
        3 months ago

        There’s a huge difference.

        Fediverse uses almost no energy compared to Reddit and Twitter. This is because few people are using fediverse alternatives.

        Bitcoin uses more energy than entire countries, despite few people using it.

        • uienia@lemmy.world
          271·
          3 months ago

          And also the fediverse serves a purpose. Crypto is just a shortsighted pyramid scheme fueled by greed.

          • Allero@lemmy.today
            39·
            3 months ago

            Crypto is not all about short-term gains and it does have utility. It’s just not an answer to everything, and we should stop treating it like a speculative asset.

            • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
              7·
              3 months ago

              we should stop treating it like a speculative asset.

              If it were to stop acting like a speculative asset more people might take it seriously.

              • Honytawk
                11·
                3 months ago

                If it were to stop acting like a speculative asset, nobody would be using it.

                It is all just perpetrated by tech bros who try to get rich from it. Their crypto portfolio is directly connected to the amount of people they can convince to buy in.

                • jumjummy@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  Exactly, and if somehow it became impossible to instantly convert crypto to USD, crypto would be worthless. Crypto doesn’t have enough actual utility on its own besides gray/black market purposes.

          • sour@feddit.orgEnglish
            302·
            3 months ago

            No, you don’t. The same way I don’t have to justify using nextcloud vs gdrive because nextcloud uses a lot more energy per user since it’s self hosted.

            Bitcoin uses an absurd amount of energy for its popularity and use. Period.

          • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
            141·
            3 months ago

            and you’d have the same problem cryptocurrency has.

            No, that’s not going to happen. The reason why cryptocurrencies must rely on a consensus algorithm is because the order of transactions matter. One transaction can make another transaction impossible depending on which one comes first.

            Fediverse doesn’t have this strict condition. No post and comment can make another impossible. It’s also not the entire world if a post is lost.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
        15·
        3 months ago

        Decentralization isn’t the reason, and conflating it with fediverse services is disingenuous.

        The reason many cryptos use a lot of power is because of proof of work.

        Proof of stake and proof of work have the same effective result for voting power. In order to effectively mine, you need a large capital investment and in order to stay competitive in mining you need to continue spending capital, the same is true for proof of stake as the larger overall stake the lower the payouts, so it requires more capital investment.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        1511·
        3 months ago

        Can’t tell if this is shill, but I dislike cryptocurrencies and anyone who defends them. Not that you did, per se, but it’s close.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            6·
            3 months ago

            You can buy a gift card in cash which works just like a debit card and not have to worry about cryptocurrency.

                • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
                  21·
                  3 months ago

                  they didn’t say a bank specifically,

                  I had to pay student loans in another country, but my bank blocked the credit card transactions because they were foreign. The only other way was cryptocurrency with a tiny fee, or a bank transaction with 10% plus 50$ fees. Guess which one I picked.

                  Gift cards that act like credit/debit cards are harder to get than they used to be. I think all of the mainstream ones require identification or linking to a previous bank account per regulation now

                  The prepaid card issuer is required by law to verify your identity for most types of prepaid accounts. You may be asked to provide your full name, street address (no P.O. boxes), date of birth, and Social Security number, taxpayer identification number, or another identification number. (link)

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            3 months ago

            To your point about money transfers, this is only true because crypto exchanges are dodging regulations. The cost and time involved in international transfers is primarily red tape, because no one likes wire fraud, money laundering, or people funding terrorism.

            If crypto ever “succeeds” as it hopes to, it will become more and more regulated, and the value you see in it will increasingly diminish.

          • subignition@fedia.io
            1·
            3 months ago

            I wonder whether a travel notification could have solved your issue with paying a foreign merchant.