As the crypto space has rapidly grown/evolved, particularly over the past two years or so, so too have the arguments against it. Make no mistake, classic flawed criticisms like “tulip-mania” and “blockchain but not bitcoin” still all to often rear their ugly heads in mainstream crypto related discourse. Recently however, a new breed of criticism has begun to form against crypto, one less directed at the merit of technology, and instead focused on the culture surrounding the space. The most prevalent of these criticisms is the recent narrative around a perceived lack of women in crypto. Not only is this untrue, it is also a dangerous, divisive attack on a young, blossoming, hugely disruptive space.
Untrue
It must first be pointed out that this idea of an absence of women in the crypto-space simply isn’t true. Many essential tools and go-to information resources within the crypto industry have been created or contributed to by women. Yes, the number of men in the space is likely orders of magnitude higher, but to imply that this is due to some unfair barrier to entry that applies to only women simply isn’t true. Furthermore, it may be argued that this idea of crypto being a boys only club is both insulting and dismissive to the important notable work already done by women in the space.
Counter-productive
More than just untrue however these socio-political arguments, be they based on sex, race, gender orientation, or any other social quality, are damaging to the space and counter intuitive to what Bitcoin was created to accomplish. Crypto-assets and more specifically bitcoin, were created with the idea that all people would be given access to and control over their own finances and wealth, without the dependency/trust and barriers to entry often involved in the modern banking system. Perhaps the most ironic part of the cultural leftists’ attempts to apply their narratives to bitcoin, is that bitcoin has done much more to combat systemic barriers within finance/wealth than supposedly significant political movements such as Occupy Wall Street ever did. Bitcoin has allowed wealth to exist and grow on a global scale, outside of the global financial system, in an unprecedented way.
We have seen just recently in Venezuela, bitcoin and other crypto-assets being used by people in order to store their wealth and save it from the cataclysmic collapse of the Venezuelan Bolivar. This is just one example of bitcoin serving as a vital tool to people suffering under an oppressive discriminatory system, and yet it remains largely unacknowledged by proponents of the idea that crypto is a space by and for straight white males. It would be easy to thing, the social justice and Occupy types would be applauding the potential opened up by bitcoin and its younger siblings. Yet, as usual, it is apparent that the left and moreover the larger political class love problems, but disdain solutions.
Bad Advice
Perhaps the worst arguments laid out by this new breed of crypto detractor, are their proposed solutions. All of these recent articles that speak of needing more of a particular social sect in the crypto space, often encourage members of said groups (women, minorities, etc) to get involved in, launch, or invest in upcoming projects and ICO’s, a highly speculative space. These articles do nothing to educate the supposedly excluded individuals on the value of bitcoin and its many future economic implications such as hyperbitcoinization.
It seems that some of the press has ironically moved from calling the entire crypto space a bubble to encouraging supposedly downtrodden people to invest and participate in arguably its most bubbly area. If you want any individual to have staying power in the crypto space, fanning the flames of the recent ICOmania is no way to go about it. It is unfortunate that many mainstream media outlets would rather tell their readers that they are somehow fighting “systematic oppression” by buying the most trendy ERC20 token, than inform and educate the public on the truly revolutionary technology that is bitcoin.
Bitcoin and more generally cryptocurrency, exists in order to remove systematic barriers that exist in our world today. To argue that the space creates said barriers is not only untrue it is laughable. This latest line of attack simply proves that the mainstream media and most of the public at large still don’t understand bitcoin no matter how much time they spend talk about it. Crypto is stronger than these arguments and will outlive them, however the advice being offered by the outlets spouting these narratives must be argued and cautioned against.