Blockchain
Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, as Other Crypto Leaders Pitch Behind Donald Trump, Opposes Candidate Selection Just Because They Love Crypto
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, while other major cryptocurrency leaders are loudly supporting Donald Trump’s run for US president, supported against supporting candidates based solely on the fact that they are “pro-crypto.”
“By publicly appearing to support ‘pro-crypto’ candidates just because they are ‘pro-crypto,’ you are helping to create an incentive gradient whereby politicians will realize that all they need to get your support is to support ‘crypto,’” Buterin wrote on his blog Wednesday.
“There is a growing push within the cryptocurrency space to become more politically active and favor political parties and candidates almost entirely based on whether or not they are willing to be lenient and friendly toward ‘cryptocurrencies,’” Buterin added. “In this post, I argue against this trend and, in particular, argue that making decisions in this way carries a high risk of going against the values that brought you to the cryptocurrency space in the first place.”
The comments from Buterin, widely regarded as Ethereum’s intellectual leader, stand in stark contrast to the strongly pro-Trump rhetoric of other prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry.
Ryan Selkis, the co-founder of cryptocurrency information platform Messari, has been particularly outspoken, calling each other a “single-issue voter,” meaning he prefers Trump to the incumbent president, Joe Biden, because Trump says he likes cryptocurrencies. Selkis recently appeared at a gala at Mar-a-Lago where Trump He advertised his NFT collection and spoke of his newfound friendliness toward digital resources.
Coinbase, the major US-based cryptocurrency exchange, has emerged as a major force in political donations this year, with its Fairshake CAP. The cryptocurrency industry now boasts one of the the biggest piles of money to influence elections – with victories already dentedEssentially, it’s about electing politicians who will make the United States an easier place for cryptocurrency companies to operate.
On X, Selkis dried up Buterin for the post. “I respect Vitalik, but he has always been among the most naive and useless political commentators in the crypto world. Idealism is not realism, and he pretends that we are not dealing with a cultural cancer and an infestation of Marxism. He is wrong.”
UPDATE (July 17, 2024, 21:24 UTC): Adds comments by Ryan Selkis.