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As Crypto Leaders Back Trump, Vitalik Buterin Urges Caution in Choosing Candidates for Their Crypto Views
- The crypto community has rallied around Donald Trump thanks to the Republican leader’s position as the “pro-crypto” candidate.
- Vitalik Buterin disagrees with many in the community’s philosophy that “pro-crypto” means “pro-blockchain”.
- In a recent blog post, Buterin argues that the Web3 sphere is intended to improve economic, social and technological freedoms.
- Most supporters of the pro-crypto political movement, he implies, are looking at it through a purely financial lens.
US politics has dominated the global news cycle for the past week. The attempted assassination of Republican candidate Donald Trump was as shocking as it was provoking. As always, conspiracies and personal biases have overshadowed legitimate discourse on social media. But despite the political sh#!storm, one constant has remained – a key to Trump’s 2024 presidential push is his pro-crypto agenda.
While this has had a positive effect on the market, not everybody is convinced Trump and co have the blockchain’s best interests at heart.
Related: Making Crypto Great Again: Trump Embraces Crypto as Central Theme For 2024 Campaign
Buterin Believes Crypto is Bigger than Crypto, Has Broader Implications on Social and Technological Freedoms
Vitalik Buterin is one of the biggest names in crypto, behind perhaps only Satoshi Nakamoto… and for some reason, Elon Musk. The co-founder of Ethereum has always been outspoken with his beliefs, and has stirred controversy with his most recent blog post: “Against choosing your political allegiances based on who is ‘pro-crypto’”.
Fundamentally, Buterin argues that voting for a party based purely on their crypto ideals may actually conflict with the very premise of the blockchain world. He touches upon the reason crypto was created in the first place – an offshoot of the “cypherpunk movement” which “argued for free and open technology as a way of protecting and enhancing individual freedoms”.
In essence, Bitcoin became a bastion for freedom, a means of avoiding restrictive government laws (particularly in the copyright space) and improving digital privacy and identity.
Buterin believes that many in the pro-crypto space have turned away from these fundamentals of freedom and now focus entirely on freedom of money, which in turn, he argues is a justification for “number go up”. Simply, the Ethereum founder is criticising the current crypto community as predominantly looking after their own pockets, rather than the holistic freedoms blockchain was built upon.
Social Media Divided on Buterin’s Blog Post
So what’s this all got to do with Trump?
Well, Buterin never directly mentions US politics – rather, he addresses the trend of pro-crypto candidates across the world.
Most of the current “pro-crypto” political crowd have their eyes set on the legislature. They want to create a framework for trading and using crypto in a financial sense. However, Buterin argues that this lacks the depth required to address the totality of an evolving blockchain sphere.
New Web3 projects target all sorts of social and economic inequalities beyond just crypto as a token. Some are geared toward affordable housing, some want to help the technological sphere grow with decentralised, open-source code. And whatever the “underlying goal” of crypto you empathise with the most should be what captures your vote, not just a party being pro-crypto for the sake of being pro-crypto.
By publicly giving the impression that you support ‘pro-crypto’ candidates just because they are ‘pro-crypto’, you are helping to create an incentive gradient where politicians come to understand that all they need to get your support is to support ‘crypto’.
Vitalik Buterin Of course, the Twitterverse was divided on Buterin’s comments – even though he didn’t once directly mention Trump or Biden. In fact, several have accused his blog post as being a roundabout way of announcing his support for the Democratic party, when Buterin doesn’t even live in the US.
However, more reasonable criticism points out that it’s all well and good for a billionaire to discuss social issues and freedoms – when by nature, his status affords him rights that others don’t enjoy.
But others have fired back.
Which led to the most predictable response of all time.
Ahhh, crypto Twitter. The gift that keeps on giving!
Author
Ben Knight
Ben Knight is a writer and editor from Melbourne with a passion for all things music and finance. He enjoys turning complex topics – especially the technical details of cryptocurrency – into digestible bites that anybody can understand. He acquired his Master’s in Writing, Editing and Publishing from RMIT in 2019 and has run his own creative writing business ever since.
