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Racism Has No Place In Cryptocurrency: Or America, Mr. Trump.

Why the crypto industry should be outraged by Trump's racism.

Racism Has No Place In Cryptocurrency Or America, Mr. Trump

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Cryptocurrency is an industry without borders. The very nature of decentralization and anonymity should preclude your geographical location, the color of your skin, your gender, your sexuality, your age, your religion, from mattering at all.

In that sense, it is one of the most powerful democratizing forces ever created by humans.

So when Donald Trump explains that he is “not a fan” of Bitcoin, perhaps there’s more to it than his concern over the usurpation of the dollar’s status as the de facto world currency.

Perhaps it’s just the racist demagogue in him, itching to prevent people who are non-white or non-male from achieving economic parity.

George W. Bush may have re-popularized the word ’emboldened’ when referring to terrorists, but one thing the former Republican President never forgot is that there is a difference between “threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking” and “nationalism distorted into nativism – [forgetting] the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America”.

‘Emboldened’ must be exactly how Donald Trump feels today, after tweeting a racist slur against four members of the House of Representatives. Without naming the four women of color, Trump finally summoned up the ‘courage’ to abandon his dog-whistling cover – and to overtly assert that his agenda is based entirely on white privilege. Specifically, white male privilege.


Go Back To Where You Came From

I’m an immigrant from the United Kingdom – I have lived in the United States for almost 20 years. My partners and colleagues who work with Crypto Briefing are from all over the world. We have people in the UK, Russia, Estonia, South Africa, France, Kenya, Bulgaria, Canada, Australia, Italy.

We are a decentralized company, because we welcome and value ideas, talent, and innovation… wherever we find people who embody those qualities. America has a staggering pool of talent. Planet Earth has an even more impressive one.

I have never, not once, come across a single instance of racism in this industry.

That’s not to say it doesn’t exist. But it must be hard, for a racist, to work in a sector that’s so blind to color (and that, despite the well-documented gender disparity at the intersection of technology and finance, seems to be trying to adopt a more mature attitude to the inclusion of women as well).

You might think it would also be hard to be President of the United States, and also a racist. But anomalies are part of any system.

I was asked by a reader the other day if we would keep politics out of our Twitter feed, and my response was – “Why? Crypto is political!”

It’s political because cryptocurrency represents a radical means of reducing inequality. In some cases, of course, it has created MORE inequality – as many emerging technologies do. Some people have become rich, others poor, and it’s not always fair. Neither is capitalism, or communism: economic perfection belongs to the future.

But the long-term prospects for cryptocurrencies – such as including billions of people in the economic systems that our world depends on – are unprecedented, and digital assets could be part of that future.

Economics is a political discipline. Inclusion is a political issue. Self-sovereignty and the degree to which we cede power to the state, or a corporation, is the definition of politics.

This technology could reshape society.

No wonder that privileged, white, racist men are so afraid of it.

P.S. If you’re looking for something fun to do on a Sunday afternoon, and you’re not sure what I’m really talking about, count the number of faces on Donald Trump’s Twitter header that are not white.

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