Crypto has often come across as apolitical. This is partly due to being seen as existing outside regular financial systems and, going back through crypto history, being outside regular systems really meant that, with early enthusiasts acquiring bitcoin peer-to-peer, sometimes even physically meeting up with sellers and paying in cash.
Such personal mechanisms don’t scale up to mass adoption, but they are bedded in the perception that Bitcoin, and crypto more widely, are separated from banking, financial services and, relatedly, from politics.
Times have changed though, and debate recently has centered on crypto’s access (or lack of access) to banking services and fiat on/off ramps. And, any perceived separation from politics is becoming a bygone chapter, as we increasingly see crypto mechanisms utilized politically while, at the same time, mainstream politicians take firm public stances on crypto.
Warren’s War on Crypto
In the US, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren explicitly declared last week that she is “building an anti-crypto army.”
This is part of her proposition to reintroduce the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, which proponents claim is to target criminal activity and protect crypto users, while critics assert that it fails to understand crypto, and will simply drive innovation away from the US.
Furthermore, it’s unclear whether such aggressively crypto-hostile messaging will win support from voters. In November last year, a survey on behalf of digital asset manager Grayscale Investments found that while 79% of Americans believed crypto needed clearer regulation, 21% held crypto, and 53% (including 59% of Democrats) agreed that crypto “represents the future of finance.”
The Politics of NFTs
For those who only associate NFTs with JPEGs of cartoon apes, it may come as a surprise, but there are several NFT projects that take an openly political stance, although, through being connected with the worlds of art and design, the NFT approach tends to exert influence through cultural channels.
Nadya Tolokonnikova
It’s been reported that the Russian authorities have placed Nadya Tolokonnikova, who is a member of the activist band Pussy Riot, on a most wanted list. The charges appear to relate to a 2022 anti-Putin performance art piece, and an earlier 2021 NFT that Russian government court papers describe as, “an expression of obvious disrespect in relation to the icon image The Virgin Mary.”
Pussy Riot have raised money through the sale of NFTs before, and in response to the new charges being leveled at her, Tolokonnikova stated,
“They threaten us but we cannot show fear. I will use the tools I have as an artist and crypto enthusiast to keep fighting.”
A remarkable aspect of these events is that while Tolokonnikova cites crypto as a political tool she uses in opposition to the Russian state, there are politicians in the US, a country currently supporting Ukraine in armed conflict against that same Russian state, who are lining up to condemn crypto.
Edward Snowden
Another dissident political figure, Edward Snowden, auctioned an NFT back in 2021, the proceeds of which (it sold for around $5.4 million) went to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, with Snowden stating at the time that:
"Emerging applications of cryptography can play an important role in supporting our rights. This auction will drive the development of valuable and privacy-protecting uses of encryption, to safeguard press freedom and serve the public"
Curiously, although both Nadya Tolokonnikova and Edward Snowden can be regarded as dissidents, Snowden evaded the US Department of Justice by seeking asylum, and eventually being granted citizenship, in Russia, the very country against which Tolokonnikova is now putting up resistance.
Punk6529
Within the NFT world, Punk6529 is the pseudonym of an influential figure who comes across as equal parts investor, collector of digital art, and what we might broadly call a thought leader, advocating for NFTs and web3.
Core to his aims is a project called the Open Metaverse, and he proposes that increased immersion in the digital world is an incoming reality. This, according to Punk6529, makes it critical to ensure that our freedoms are protected in the online environment, a vision he's laid out in a "statement of human rights in the digital realm" called the Global Digital Rights Charter.
Within the Open Metaverse project, there is an expanding collection of NFTs called The Memes, which brings together well-known NFT artists to create work around the central theme of blockchain-oriented digital freedom. Here again, we find the use of NFT-linked art to transmit ideas, and the messages contained are often political in nature.
Can Crypto Be Apolitical?
There’s a common thread weaving through the NFT projects mentioned above, connecting with the battle between Elizabeth Warren and the crypto industry, and leading us all the way back to the Bitcoin genesis block, mined in January 2009.
Punk6529 encapsulates it when he emphasizes the importance of guarding the 'freedom to transact', which, essentially, is what Bitcoin (and crypto, and NFTs) has been angled towards throughout its existence. Bitcoin advocates, in particular, will articulate a desire to separate money and state, and over the last few years, we’ve seen crypto enter the equation during some critical global events.
This occurred twice in quick succession in 2022 when the Canadian authorities cut off banking access to participants in the trucker protests, and crypto was used as an alternative means of sending financial support to protestors, and when aid was sent via crypto assets to Ukrainians suffering in the war with Russia.
Perhaps these uses indicate that crypto really is apolitical, in the sense that it can be used by anyone, to support any cause (it’s unlikely that everyone who sent crypto to Ukraine all had identical views on the trucker protests in Canada), and this would fit in with the Bitcoin ideal: to enable non-politicized money that is separate from the state.
However, it appears that en route to that apolitical goal, some explicitly political conflicts will require navigation, as we can currently see shaping up in the US.
