I have been writing blog postings about cryptocurrency for some time. Who needs another diatribe against "crypto"? Maybe nobody does - and I actually hope that's true. I have definitely made my own views available to anyone who regularly reads what I have to say, and here is a link that provides access to many of my prior postings (though this is probably not an exhaustive listing of my commentaries).
Admitting, as I do, that my past writings are more than ample to provide a warning against investing in cryptocurrency, the main reason that I am once again posting about this topic is that I want those who regularly read my blog postings to know that that there is more involved in "crypto" than individual speculation. "Don't bite" is good advice, but we need to go beyond that, as we think about the world of cryptocurrency, so that we understand that "crypto" is now at the heart of a new and profoundly concerning arena of political corruption.
On October 26, 2025, a major article in The Times' "Opinion" section was titled this way: "Cryptocurrency Promised Us Freedom - and Brought Tyranny." That's the "hardcopy" version. Online, the article I am talking about, by Finn Brunton, was titled this way: "How a Fringe Movement of Gun Nuts, Backwoodsmen and Free Marketers Paved the Way for Autocracy."
By the way, our current president should be added to that listing of "gun nuts, backwoodsmen, and free marketers," the way Brunton sees it. Below, are some quotes from his article. Read those, and you won't need any further commentary from me. If you do want my views, use that link I provided in the first paragraph. Here's Brunton in The New York Times (emphasis added):
It was pitched as the world’s most exclusive invitation. Hundreds gathered at President Trump’s private country club in Virginia in May for a gala evening. Guests included Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency billionaire who, in the Biden administration, was under investigation for suspected financial crimes. He and the other attendees had won their seats by being the top buyers of $TRUMP memecoin, a form of crypto that benefits Mr. Trump’s family.
“There is a lot of common sense in crypto,” said Mr. Trump, as the room was served a meal accompanied by Trump-branded wine and water. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.” Mr. Sun later expressed gratitude and received an 18-karat-gold Trump Victory Tourbillon watch. And with that, cryptocurrency elided its dark past and ascended to the apex of American power.
Cryptocurrency has found its hero in Mr. Trump. And in this unlikely moment of triumph, its most powerful proponent has laid bare the paradox at the heart of this brave new world of “new money.” Crypto was supposed to free us from the chains of government control, but now it is finally revealing what that freedom really means: removing all checks on the power of the wealthy to do what they want, discharged at last from law, supervision and civic obligation — even if the result is autocracy. Mr. Trump, with his thirst for money and power, has in one fell swoop both exposed and embraced the corruption at the heart of digital currencies — a corruption inherited from the libertarian ideals that created them....
In the 1990s, the internet revolution birthed an obscure technology that seemed almost purpose-built to fulfill a libertarian extremist’s visions: the blockchain. Originally proposed as a way to help authenticate and time-stamp digital data, it offered a way for strangers to maintain a shared digital ledger over the internet. With the blockchain, people could prove ownership of property, transfer or receive online assets and even set up contracts without filing any paperwork, dealing with auditors, banks or regulators, or paying taxes.The technology soon attracted a following of libertarians, the most extreme of whom had long dreamed of replacing government-regulated banks with a parallel financial infrastructure for untaxable, untraceable, borderless online-only cash. They used the technology to develop cryptocurrencies, the first of which was Bitcoin....
Crypto also attracted criminals. Libertarian projects seem to invariably attract both. By definition, a libertarian tool is a tool to skirt conventional legality, a challenge to existing laws and their legitimacy....
Then crypto attracted the attention of a few major Silicon Valley investors. Early to the party was Peter Thiel, an extreme libertarian who has long championed a belief in the limits and failings of democratic institutions. He is almost better known for his wild positions — city-state “seastead” tax havens in international waters, and lamenting women’s suffrage — than for his investing acumen....
Then came Covid, which led the Federal Reserve to sharply cut interest rates. Venture capitalists took that effectively free money and poured it into the hot new thing. And the more capital that went to funding crypto start-ups, the more that followed — a classic case of “fear of missing out” that can transform a few high-risk investments into a frenzy. The result was a vicious cycle of cash, hype and increasingly unrealistic valuations. A single Bitcoin went from being effectively worthless in 2010 to briefly reaching $69,000 in November of 2021. The valuations ballooned, as did the promises about crypto....
In 2021, $33 billion in venture capital was plowed into crypto start-ups, or more than in all previous years combined. Crypto.com paid $700 million to rename Staples Center in Los Angeles and cut an ad with Matt Damon that compared crypto investors to explorers and astronauts.
Criminality continued apace, but millions of Americans also found another use for crypto. “They want to gamble,” says Molly White, an industry researcher and critic, with users rapidly trading various cryptocurrencies to try to gain from their fluctuating values. The pandemic, which spurred an explosion in online speculation of all sorts, rendered currencies so volatile that they couldn’t fulfill Mr. Andreessen’s goal of serving as the financial backbone of developing nations. There was also essentially nobody to hold anyone accountable for falsifying results, for Ponzi schemes, for money laundering or for “rug pulls” — hyping a new crypto to naïve investors, only to disappear with the cash once enough people had bought in.
By the end of 2022, FTX, an industry leader, was bankrupt and its founder and chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, arrested, with a conviction and prison sentence coming later. Changpeng Zhao, then the chief executive of the rival Binance, was also sent to prison. His firm was fined $4 billion for profiting from countless scams and crimes — helping ransomware hackers and child abuse sites handle their payments, for example — and enabling financial transactions and money laundering for sanctioned entities like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and North Korea....
Mr. Trump chose Senator JD Vance of Ohio — Mr. Thiel’s longtime protégé — as his running mate and headlined the Bitcoin conference in Nashville two weeks later. “The rules,” Mr. Trump announced, “will be written by people who love your industry.” Mr. Andreessen, who supported Democratic candidates in prior election cycles, backed Mr. Trump’s campaign. In all, the crypto industry would become the dominant corporate donor in 2024, putting in over $130 million; a vast majority of all industry donations to the presidential race were to the Trump-Vance ticket....
Mr. Trump won. Almost immediately after taking office, he ushered crypto’s biggest backers into the highest echelons of power. David Sacks, a close associate of Mr. Thiel, was appointed “A.I. and crypto czar,” tasked with designing the new regulatory framework for the industry. Associates of Mr. Thiel and Mr. Andreessen are now peppered throughout the administration....
Many regulations, investigations and enforcement cases against the industry have been rolled back or dropped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had sought oversight of crypto payments to address scam and fraud complaints, was ordered to halt activities. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Assets and Cyber unit was rebranded into a smaller and more industry-friendly team.
Mr. Trump pardoned crypto executives and even a corporation — a first. When he made good on a campaign promise and pardoned Mr. Ulbricht, the black market platform chief, the moment was hailed by the Libertarian Party as “an incredible moment in Libertarian history.”
With regulators defanged and oversight gone, Mr. Trump and a handful of tech backers have been able to seize power and merge their interests with the country’s resources as they see fit.
Over the past nine months, Mr. Trump has turned crypto into an efficient and powerful cash-in machine to grow the family fortune. Remember Mr. Sun, the gala attendee? In addition to the roughly $15 million he spent on $TRUMP, which secured that gala ticket, he has spent at least $75 million on tokens and investments tied to World Liberty Financial, a crypto-finance company mostly owned by the Trump family. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s suit against Mr. Sun has been dropped, and the S.E.C. ceased its investigation into a set of businesses connected with him. And on Thursday, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Zhao, the ex-Binance chief. He and Binance have, like Mr. Sun, been highly supportive of World Liberty. If the Trumps are willing to make deals, there is little to stop crypto’s biggest backers from getting anything they want.
Flush with money from the now-powerful crypto lobby, Congress and the administration have already passed one law allowing private companies to issue their own crypto and are considering another that would forever bar the government from issuing digital currency itself, ensuring there would be no free government alternative to the for-profit platforms and the tokens Silicon Valley controls. The result could well be a permanent private replacement of the existing financial system — the ideal outcome for a crypto venture investor. If price is any indicator, confidence in crypto is near an all-time high: a single Bitcoin is now worth nearly $110,000.
President Trump has always approached politics as a branch of business, a way to capture wealth, status and power. But it took someone with his instincts to fulfill the darkest potential of the libertarian project. Mr. Trump seems to have understood something that escaped generations of libertarian politicians and philosophers: Rather than dissolving the power of the state totally, he could do so selectively, to put himself and his allies above the law, while using the full force of the state to punish his adversaries; to promote crypto, while also insisting he be in charge of the Fed; to pardon allies, while having his enemies charged.
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