Florida gonzo author Tim Dorsey, a notable satirist known for his savage wit in trying to thoroughly dissect the surreal social dynamics within the state, conjured a hilariously inane scenario where the Cartel was attempting to wash money by fixing the lottery. Fortunately, the writer of “Clownfish Blues” among other Serge Storms series titles, encountered the inspiration irreverence before the onslaught of Bitcoin and derivatives, as the implied core of cryptocurrency furnishes the anonymity which allows for criminal organizations and rogue governments to make lucrative financial transactions without fear of law enforcement or military intervention.
Dorsey’s fictional scheme involved infusing legions of Florida locals with cash to purchase lottery tickets from all corners of the state in the hopes that the “winners” would act as washing mechanisms in cleaning the currency. Fast forward to 2022, and as the unprecedented midterm elections loom, as least from the perspective of legislative sensibility practiced over the next two years, and waves of cryptocurrency tycoons have decreed that they will spend staggering sums on specific political races, which is not simply contingent on the Trump factor.
NBC news shares the sinuous plot of embryonic Bitcoin mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, a member of the nouveau riche fraternity currently delving into contemporary US civics with fortunes secured from building exchanges and mining efforts. The 30-year-old entrepreneur has already spent $12 million of participatory funds within the confines of the election circuit, and has ascended to the trending headlines by proclaiming that he could invest in upwards of $1 billion to support Democratic candidates. His resounding statement spanning the digital channels will test the fortitude of the McCain-Feingold act, and puts him in the company of the disruptive nobility along with failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, and the indelible George Soros.
While the entire marketplace of digital currencies has recently tanked, as the Ukraine crises, and China’s continuous threats to attempt to regulate the currently unregulated electronic monetary system like only the Chinese can, the founders of the precarious pyramid scheme allegedly possess the capital to inflict general suffering on the American people. Perplexingly, Bitcoin and other forks of the original source code contain zero guarantees or insurances for the investor, and corporate giants such as Amazon and Walmart, have been reluctant to interface the volatile money, yet the currencies maintain an undeserved value.
The fact that Bankman-Fried and colleagues pocketed disposal income from a speculative technology that could potentially change the trajectory of key political races both illustrates what is great, and what is wrong with the US. Like something out of a Dorsey novel, next-generation gamers depositing a virtual quarter into a 2022 Pac-man arcade version representing the basis of the personal computer era, what is the end game for the infancy of wealthy societal engineers experimenting on the country with a single credit Bitcoin insertion into the console? As the 8-bit pioneers of the mid 1970’s could have never predicted the blooming of the information age in less that give decades, the prevalence of unthinkable technologies which are now commonplace, gives a dizzying vision of what life could be like by 2030. It’s as if the entire collective has been desensitized to change, where the extremes have become the norms, and the norms have been left to rot on a Caribbean cruise ship as retirement homes have become floating coffins and the nexus for smuggling operations (another brilliant Dorsey plot twist).
While the root of cryptocurrency transactions are randomly generated encrypted 64 character hashes which miners solve and extract to verify the exchange of funds between two end users, the veritable dart board method to candidates that Bankman-Fried and others are employing, captures the essence of arrogance of those prospering from the gig economy. As the aforementioned ten plus million dollars invested into a rural Oregon election that ended up with the liberal being absolutely annihilated, the purveyors of such reckless spending strategies apparently fail to weigh the consequences of campaign spending based on fringe analytics, and not the tangible. As digital currencies are converted to old fashioned cash, what are the fiscal ramifications of untraceable funds from God knows where, and from God knows who, infiltrating the economy.
It is not difficult to envision nefarious elements and groups circumventing borders to cash in on their operations, while simultaneously existing as an instrumental political force in the absence of accountability. Bankman-Fried and associates may be cogent of this plausibly, but as actions speak louder than words, the blockchain has a much more involved ulterior motive, existing for itself. With fundamental liberties hanging in the balance, the oblivious approach to proxy governing through tycoons has already been tried, and with unconscionable results, that only a pandemic and a global war could alleviate.
As the younger generations are defined by the immersion within video games, the point of view perspective tends to adhere to narcissism rather than common sense, and when an infrastructure is built on a system of untested beliefs, the near future exists in the precarious.
