Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
Did your kid overdose on Chinese fentanyl — again? Bitcoin basically fed it straight into his veins via an intravenous digital needle.
Did it rain today? Bitcoin seeded those clouds.
Alternatively, is there a draught? The governing authorities would also like you to know that Bitcoin drives something called “climate change.”
Feeling depressed? I think you know what to blame – Bitcoin and the goddamned Nazis that use it!
Via Bloomberg:
“As lawyers and prosecutors rake over the ashes of Sam Bankman-Fried’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, another reckoning for digital currencies is underway: Governments around the world are intensifying their crackdown on sources of funding for terrorist groups — including crypto — after Hamas’s bloody attack in Israel that claimed more than 1,400 lives and led to retaliatory attacks that have killed thousands.
Crypto is a small but deadly slice of overall terrorism funding: Research by analytics firm Elliptic in 2021 estimated that wallets linked to Hamas’ military wing had received more than $7.3 million in crypto, including around $40,000 in Dogecoin, the dog-themed memecoin favored by Elon Musk. These sums aren’t much compared with the $100 million that Iran sends annually to Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups or with Qatar’s $360 million in aid for Gaza, or the approximately $300 million Hamas gets via business taxation and extortion estimated by the Washington Institute’s Matthew Levitt. But small amounts can make a difference in an era of low-cost, low-tech attacks. An estimate of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by the New York Times found they cost Al-Qaeda half a million dollars but cost the US $3.3 trillion.
Governments are right to take crypto seriously — it allows for large sums to be moved around the world with a high degree of anonymity (albeit leaving a transaction trail) and is part of the wider tapestry of terrorist finance, often used in conjunction with social media, remittances and pre-paid cards. Funding tends to pick up during times of conflict, and Hamas’ halt on Bitcoin donations, announced in April, might not be forever — Australia’s national financial crime agency this week flagged appeals on Telegram for crypto donations for Hamas, according to an AFR report.”
To paraphrase George W. Bush from the War of Terror days, you’re either with the central bankers or you’re with the terrorists.
The “let’s ban crypto because of Muslim terrorists” talking point is a variation of the old “criminals use guns to commit crimes, ergo no one gets them” argument for gun control/confiscation.
Out-of-control street criminals in Great Britain use knives for their dirt – should we ban those too? Baseball bats? Power tools?
Furthermore, why should the fucking government get power tools and guns if they’re so dangerous? If they’re dangerous in the hands of the average citizenry, they’re certainly so in the hands of power-hungry government bureaucrats.
The same logic applies with digital currency.
So, fuck you and your Fed CBDC Janet Yellen, you floppy-titted wildebeest! The only way you’ll ever be able to shut down Bitcoin is to shut down the internet itself – which you yourself have acknowledged. That’s why it’s called decentralized, you central banker cunt!
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
Follow his stuff Substack if you are inclined to support independent journalism free of corporate slant. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.
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