Senate cryptocurrency hearing misses the big picture on decentralization

The senate explored what-if disaster scenarios for cryptocurrencies, while failing to recognize the current real-world problems decentralized technology aims to solve.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 27, 2021

CONTACT: Joe Thornton, press@fightforthefuture.org

Today the Senate’s “Cryptocurrencies: What are they good for?” hearing failed to meaningfully answer that question. Speaking to an expert panel on cryptocurrencies and decentralization, Senators spent the vast majority of their time on the possible disaster scenarios for decentralized systems, while leaving unexplored their own question: why decentralization matters to a more just, equitable, and democratic future. 

The Senators’ main concern seemed to be that without regulation, cryptocurrency could adopt the same exploitative and fraudulent qualities of the current financial system. Unfortunately, using old systems and abuses to evaluate revolutionary new democratizing technologies threatens to further entrench the current banking system’s abusive economic stranglehold. 

“The thing that the Senate seems to be missing,” said Joseph Thornton III, Campaigner for Fight for Future, “is that cryptocurrencies and decentralized tech are currently the most viable way for us to get away from the abuses of big tech and surveillance capitalism. These new systems are also by design more transparent and abuse-resistant than any financial tool we’ve had in the past.” 

Marta Belcher of FileCoin summed it up succinctly in her statement during the hearing: “Cryptocurrency can be the foundation for a better internet. An alternative to big tech that puts people in control of their own data, protects user privacy and security, and permanently preserves humanity’s most important information.”

Founded in 2011, Fight for the Future is continuing their fight for the democratization of the internet as an emerging player in the fight for decentralization. In 2020, we launched StopFinancialSurveillance.org, where more than 3,000 people submitted comments to FinCEN and the Federal Reserve opposing a rule that would allow warrantless financial surveillance of cryptocurrency transactions.