A college professor recently teamed up with Southern Poverty Law Center for a hit piece blaming Bitcoin for the rise of white supremacy by “the racist right.” This sensationalized claim was repeated in many prominent news outlets.
The reality is that cryptocurrencies are more likely to be used by Democrats, minorities, and human rights groups. In fact, Donald Trump — who SPLC said “energized the white supremacist movement in unprecedented ways” — wanted to crack down on Bitcoin when he was president.
But that didn’t stop the SPLC and computer science professor Megan Squire from asserting in an article last month that “Cryptocurrency Revolutionized the White Supremacist Movement.”
The authors explained: “[We] struggled to find any prominent player in the global far right who hasn’t yet embraced cryptocurrency … [including] senior citizens in the white supremacist movement,” and “in some cases [they] produced million-dollar profits through the technology, reshaping the racist right in radical ways …. What happens to digital currencies from here is likely to have a profound impact on the far right due to the degree to which extremists have adopted the technology relative to the population as a whole.”
The piece is the latest in a series of media attacks linking cryptocurrency to right-wing politics. In September 2021, the Associated Press called it the “currency of the radical right.” Some journalists also blamed Bitcoin for the “booming cottage industry” of fake vaccine cards.
Such rhetoric may be used by the Biden administration to justify stricter cryptocurrency laws, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already called for more regulation. But Democrats may want to think twice before increasing restrictions.
Here’s the truth about cryptocurrency: Most of the ownership is concentrated among younger, more diverse, and left-leaning Americans, according to a December 2021 Morning Consult poll. The poll found that 30% of black and 27% of Hispanic Americans own cryptocurrency, compared with 20% of all Americans. And 61% of crypto investors voted for President Joe Biden, while 32% voted for Trump.
“Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see crypto investments like Bitcoin as ‘a new path’ to wealth and equity,” a USA Today article stated.
Cryptocurrency is also being used to improve human rights worldwide. When a blogging platform for women in Afghanistan encountered problems paying its contributors because they didn’t have bank accounts, it paid in Bitcoin. One contributor whose husband beat her and confiscated her money was able to save once she began earning Bitcoins and filed for divorce.
Other examples include the United Nations using cryptocurrency to aid over 10,000 Syrian refugees, ensuring food is being sourced ethically and without slave labor, and eradicating the so-called “blood diamond trade.”
It appears Bitcoin has become the currency of the radical Left, too. Infamous Democratic donor George Soros — who bankrolled several soft-on-crime district attorneys in big city elections — is a Bitcoin investor. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced he will receive his first paychecks in Bitcoin and wants cryptocurrency taught in schools. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, socialist President Nicolas Maduro has used cryptocurrency to sidestep economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.
Cryptocurrencies are merely a tool that can be used for good or bad. Bitcoin itself does not promote one type of behavior or another. Rather, humans determine its objectives and outcomes.
Mark Grabowski is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He’s a professor, founder of the cryptocurrency FreeSpeech.Finance, and author of Cryptocurrencies: A Primer on Digital Money.
