A latest opinion piece in The Nation by TIME Enterprise reporter Sam Gustin tells readers to “Be Afraid.” He’s warning them about cryptocurrency and Donald Trump.
In it, the writer quotes Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia College professor Joseph Stiglitz, saying: “There’s an infinite danger of self-dealing right here.”
Economist’s Warning About Trump, Cryptocurrency
“The hazard is just not solely conflicts of curiosity, however a mindset amongst Trump and his cronies by which they don’t even perceive the idea of conflicts of curiosity,” Stiglitz stated.
“The irony is that right here you have got a president who was elected on an allegedly ‘populist’ platform partaking in essentially the most huge pro-billionaire, pro-wealth redistribution in US historical past.”
“The outcome, specialists say, can be larger costs, diminished client protections, and deeper financial inequality in america,” Gustin writes.
However is that actually true?
Is it true that cryptocurrency is transferring essentially the most huge sum of wealth in historical past from the center class to billionaires?
Bitcoin’s Populist Attraction
If something, crypto’s most die-hard advocates would argue that the standard finance system, based mostly on credit score, redistributes essentially the most to billionaires. As a result of it always revalues debt with cheaper {dollars}. Billionaires and their corporations use essentially the most debt-based devices.
In the meantime, the ever-expanding cash system causes costs to rise steadily. Crypto property, however, trigger decrease costs by rewarding folks for saving their cash. The straightforward credit score financial system does reward companies with massive expense accounts to spend their cash.
Furthermore, the Republican Celebration’s reckoning with crypto helps to make sure client protections for many who need them. However that doesn’t miss permitting extra freedom for others.
Many blockchain customers are prepared to take the dangers that associate with pushing liquid monetary markets and the Web’s functionality to their limits.
As for financial inequality, it has been a criticism of voters for many years beneath conventional finance techniques. Their advantages solely appear to kick in at a sure financial system of scale unreachable by most individuals.
However that’s not so with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have made the earnings of market capitalism obtainable to all members equally at any stage of participation.
Bitcoin’s value was solely $43,000 a yr in the past. However right this moment, it’s greater than twice that quantity, buying and selling at $103,000 on Saturday. That represents a achieve of over 130% returns on funding for crypto patrons who bought Bitcoin final January.
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