Review: “Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism”

I recently picked this short book out of my Wish List and read it on the Metro.

Bitcoin and the blockchain technology on which it rests satisfy needs that make sense only in the context of right-wing politics

I found myself drawn toward the title and then thesis of the book: that because Bitcoin’s ideals come from cyberlibertarianism, its political pillars have threads which you pull on and find yourself in far right-wing beliefs and conspiracy theories. It is true that even technical overviews of Bitcoin will discuss the concepts of central banking / fiat / the Federal Reserve / ‘feeding the beast’ in the same tone as a right wing or libertarian activist. The implication that the Federal Reserve or ‘the banks’ control gold and the economy does lead itself to the idea that it manipulates the economy’s ups and downs, which does lead to conspiracies.

It’s been a while since I was studying an economics textbook, so I learn a lot from political discussions and informed criticism of Bitcoin. The author, Professor David Golumbia, explains the benefits of reasonable inflation, the Federal Reserve, and regulation as agreed on by most economists, and that even technical guides to Bitcoin claim the opposite as undisputed common knowledge. Many cryptocurrency traders will agree that they celebrated the lack of regulation until exchanges and DAOs started getting hacked. He also points out the whiplash of banks adopting Bitcoin as proof of ‘going mainstream’ and rejection as proof that actually ‘banks fear Bitcoin’, and the lack of introspection toward how Bitcoin might change hands during deflation.

There are a few sections that ask, can people with left-wing politics find productive, pro-democracy purpose in Bitcoin? The author posits this will be fruitless, because users are buying into the same anti-central-banking theories, and the right-wing is strengthened by this. I agree that it’s difficult to think of examples of cryptocurrency being used for means beyond protecting and consolidating wealth. Even blockchain-based voting and DAOs trend toward shareholder voting, rather than strengthening one-man-one-vote democracy or transparency.

Where I disagreed strongly was:

• The book discusses inaccurate and debatable libertarian thought on money supply and size of government, but also bizarre conspiracies (Rothschilds, Illuminati, the Queen, and somehow even mentions of David Icke). Are these particularly ‘right wing’?
• The book mentions ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘nationalizing currency’ as a rallying cry of central bank opponents. This feels unfamiliar with how anti-Federal Reserve / pro-gold people usually talk in the United States, plus it has nothing to do with Bitcoin’s goal of ‘be your own bank’. If anything, hardcore cyberlibertarians want to set up some type of personal sovereignty (or autonomy, with DAOs).

The technical content I would say is accurate, with only one awkward paragraph (showing a Bitcoin address hash and saying that it is an ‘encrypted version’ of the public key, and that the address can only be ‘decoded’ by the user’s private key).

TL;DR thought-provoking. It was useful for questioning my beliefs about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and went beyond the typical ‘lol cyber money’ critique that you usually see in print.
There’s a crypto guy who I follow on Twitter who says essentially, when banks can print money, they always will. As a liberal and someone with a few leftover Zimbabwe bond dollars, I see this as a justification for diversifying my individual savings, and thinking about how cryptocurrency flows across national borders, but I don’t want a crazy insurrection to end deficit spending. A cryptocurrency is possible in political moderation, just like it’s usable without criminal intent.