from Hacker News

How Bitcoin made right-wing conspiracy theories mainstream

by schrototo on 6/10/18, 4:48 PM with 5 comments

  • by ve55 on 6/10/18, 9:38 PM

    If you actually read this article in full, it seems quite inane to me.

    >Now you have actual Nazi groups being in favor of Bitcoin. Weev, one of the biggest Nazi leaders worldwide is into it. There's a great Twitter account that tracks Weev’s Bitcoin wallet, every transaction coming out of it, along with those of some other neo-Nazis.

    It doesn't seem important that someone you dislike, nazi or not, uses a currency. Many of the world's worst criminals and killers use the US dollar. It doesn't matter.

    >that “the world will ultimately have a single currency,” which to me is a conspiratorial belief.

    It doesn't have to be Bitcoin. I don't think anyone important seriously thinks Bitcoin in its current state can be a world currency. But you might be surprised what happens in the next few decades or 100 years from now as far as a world currency goes.

    >There is at least a hint there of “illegitimate/parasitic profit takers interfering with an otherwise-honest transaction,” which is a classic form of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

    At this point I don't think this article is worth taking seriously. I'm not sure how you can read lines like this that imply rent-seeking is an "anti-semitic conspiracy theory" and continue on thinking this article is worth your time. Even if other points of the article are better than this, I still expect better content on HN

  • by njarboe on 6/10/18, 9:09 PM

    If this wasn't PR for a book, I'd think it was a satire of how someone on the left, who hates Bitcoin, would describe it.