Every major American issue seems to get sucked into the “red vs. blue” political dichotomy these days, and now it is cryptocurrency’s turn in the barrel. Following somewhat tense recent testimony between U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler and the Senate Banking Committee, Politico confidently declared “Crypto becomes partisan.”
While Capitol Hill fireworks might make it seem that way, the reality is that crypto doesn’t have a natural partisan bent – it is a universal tool that has the potential to benefit everyone in every community.
Attempting to frame cryptocurrency as either a Republican- or Democratic-leaning technology demonstrates a woeful lack of understanding about digital currency and its origins. Bitcoin emerged during the Great Recession, a period when millions of Americans were suffering due to the cascading failures of centralized-government watchdogs and large, overly powerful financial entities. Crypto innovators wanted to create a system that gave everyday Americans complete control over their financial futures and their digital lives.