Thread by @davetroy

1/I'm calling on President Joe Biden to immediately eliminate the national security risk posed by cryptocurrencies, via Executive Order — either banning or taxing dollar-to-token transactions. @POTUS

Please RT if you agree.

2/As we enter into a complex hybrid warfare landscape, these products pose a serious national security risk. As unregistered securities, they are subject to manipulation by malign actors, both foreign and domestic. The administration sees the risk.
barrons.com/articles/white…

3/But the risk isn't vague and in the future; it is here now, today. The emerging trucker convoys in Canada, US (Superbowl, DC), and Europe, are increasingly merging with hyper-libertarian "sovereign citizen" movements and crypto zealots.

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1490782519268106248?s=20&t=QFO-ikstDWPx3ADIS3yLFA

4/This is not a "new" situation particular to crypto. In April 1933, FDR signed executive orders enabling the New Deal, importantly #6102 which banned private citizens from holding gold. This same faction is now trying the same nonsense again with crypto. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive…

5/It is also not the first time we have had to deal with a rash of private currency speculation and scams. The Wildcat Banking craze of the 1850's was terminated by taxing the notes heavily. We can do the same thing now.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_b…

6/Cryptocurrencies are corrosive in wartime. They function in a manner opposite of "War Bonds" and instead drain capital and human effort into speculative, unproductive projects that provide negative utility. Cryptocurrencies are unpatriotic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bond

7/Libertarian technoutopians will try to suggest that cryptocurrencies provide "freedom" and may strengthen our position in times of war. This is nonsense. They serve to drain the national treasury. A popular libertarian argument for the gold standard is that it "prevents" war.

8/But US sovereignty and its defense posture should not be determined or affected by private interests and their ideas about money. Crypto serves the same role as the gold standard in this regard and is toxic to the actual maintenance of global peace.
moneyweek.com/2547/how-gold-…

9/There is currently a rash of US politicians that have hopped on the crypto bandwagon. They are working against our country's best interests. Here's AZ State Senator Wendy Rogers advocating crypto for truckers and blockading the Super Bowl next week.

10/Cryptocurrencies also drive social radicalization in the same way that cults or MLM schemes do, drawing vulnerable people into 'communities' that deliver meaning via parasocial (not real) relationships. Increasingly, these communities overlap with violent extremism.

11/Radicalization can be addressed early, or it can be addressed late. Late stage interventions tend to produce more violent and catastrophic outcomes. The longer we wait to interrupt this process, the more victims will be inclined to violence.
inthesetimes.com/article/the-ti…

12/Cryptocurrency cultists will deflect these concerns with logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks. Ignore it all. This attack is the latest iteration in a long-running tradition of propertarianism. This round is powered by the vision outlined in "The Sovereign Individual."

13/The first edition of that book was subtitled "How to Survive the Collapse of the Welfare State"; the later Thiel-foreword edition is subtitled "Mastering the Transition into the Information Age." This is old school far-right misanthropy.

14/And it has no place during a hybrid war with powerful enemies. They will use this to drive chaos and radicalization in the United States. Russia has experience with this from a 90's Ponzi Scheme "currency" called MMM that helped tank their economy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponz…

15/Here is a detailed memo I first drafted nearly a year ago (slightly modified for privacy) that outlines the scope of what we knew about this threat then, and the people behind it. This was circulated in policy circles. It can no longer remain private.
dropbox.com/s/w7h1tonwkurb…

16/I once again call on @POTUS Biden, whom I fully support, to immediately use his Executive Order power to stop this ongoing attack on our democracy and US sovereignty. We can either stop it now and clean up the mess or pay a very heavy price later. Our adversaries know this.

17/Here is another text by @dgolumbia that covers these concerns and which I recommend to policymakers, lawmakers, analysts, and the public.
upress.umn.edu/book-division/…

For reference, the above screenshot is from the Wikipedia page for Robert Jay Lifton's "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_R…

More from Wendy Rogers on truckers and the Superbowl:

As if there is any doubt about what's happening here. Thiel wrote the foreword for the latter edition of Sovereign Individual.
yahoo.com/now/peter-thie…