In recent months, anger over the US government’s growing hostility towards crypto has, unsurprisingly, taken on a partisan flavor, with many industry executives placing blame on individual Democrats, including President Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warrenand Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler.
But Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin sees things differently. For him, the root cause of America’s crypto crisis may not be the fault of an individual political actor, or even a political party.
“It could go beyond that,” Lubin said in an exclusive interview with Decrypt. “There may be an entity – perhaps linked to the banking lobby – behind this. »
Lubin believes that crypto and decentralization pose an existential threat to the global influence that the US state has long enjoyed in cooperation with traditional finance. Thus, he believes, certain non-partisan elements representing long-term US global interests could be behind the acceleration of the country’s crypto resistance.
The idea echoes what some eminent personalities in the crypto industry, described as “Operation Choke Point 2.0”, popularized by Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter. The theory is that there is a coordinated effort at the federal level, and perhaps beyond, to make it very difficult for crypto companies.
The speculative agenda borrows its name from real good”Operation Choke Point“The Department of Justice led from 2013 to 2017 the goal of illegally cutting off banking services to payday lenders and gun dealers. Is the same thing happening with crypto right now? Lubin says it could even be bigger than that.
“It’s pretty obvious that the United States likes to operate from the top down, to control as many things as possible in the world, including through financial intermediaries,” Lubin said. “This technology does not guarantee that bank holding companies will maintain their advantage in the long term.”
“So maybe it goes further,” he added.
According to Lubin, a so-called “clash of civilizations” between decentralization advocates like himself and the entrenched American establishment has always been somewhat inevitable. With this in mind, he said, current SEC policy assault on the crypto industry is not really a surprise or an aberration.
Last month, Consensys, the Ethereum software company founded by Lubin, filed a preventive trial against the SEC, challenging the regulator’s reports position that the purchase and sale of ETH constitutes an illegal offering of unregistered securities. Lubin has already said that an SEC victory in this case would “sound the death knell for the Ethereum blockchain in the United States.” (Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 investors in Decrypt.)
When it comes to Lubin’s theory about Wall Street’s secret hand in crypto’s current woes, there are some caveats. On the one hand, he says, it’s just speculation. And second, it’s not as if traditional finance is totally opposed to blockchain innovation: most big banks kissed spot Bitcoin ETFsand more are lining up to get on the list spot Ethereum ETFs.
But, Lubin says, profiting from crypto ETFs is far from endorsing true decentralization. Wall Street firms could easily get rich from Bitcoin ETFs while fighting to prevent companies like Consensys from building a decentralized future.
“Everyone can succeed with this technology,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they don’t want to perpetuate the system for as long as they can.”
Stay up to date with crypto news, receive daily updates in your inbox.
Fuente
