{"id":12360,"date":"2019-03-19T19:11:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T19:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=12360"},"modified":"2020-06-12T22:49:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T22:49:48","slug":"foreign-policy-neo-nazis-bet-big-on-bitcoin-and-lost-how-the-far-rights-failed-cryptocurrency-gamble-became-a-bad-joke-for-the-christchurch-killer-by-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2019\/03\/19\/foreign-policy-neo-nazis-bet-big-on-bitcoin-and-lost-how-the-far-rights-failed-cryptocurrency-gamble-became-a-bad-joke-for-the-christchurch-killer-by-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Policy: Neo-Nazis Bet Big on Bitcoin (And Lost): How the far-right&#8217;s failed cryptocurrency gamble became a bad joke for the Christchurch killer \u2014 by me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I posted on Friday, the murderous neo-Nazi terrorist <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2019\/03\/15\/no-the-new-zealand-mosque-shooter-didnt-make-his-money-in-bitconnect\/\">claimed in his manifesto to be into cryptos.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This was just more trolling nonsense from the alt-right \u2014 but James Palmer from Foreign Policy asked if there was a piece in it. Most of the press coverage of neo-Nazis and Bitcoin was from the bubble era \u2014 though Breaker did good pieces <a href=\"https:\/\/breakermag.com\/how-the-splc-a-congressman-and-a-cybersecurity-expert-track-the-alt-rights-bitcoin-wallets\/\">last October<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/breakermag.com\/another-white-supremacist-turns-to-bitcoin-to-fight-for-racism\/\">December<\/a> \u2014 so I figured there was room for an update. I interviewed some experts, and <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2019\/03\/19\/neo-nazis-banked-on-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-farright-christchurch\/\">here&#8217;s the piece.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In summary: the Nazis were very hopeful that Bitcoin was the way out of their problems with getting kicked off PayPal &#8230; but it didn&#8217;t work out that way.<\/p>\n<p>My favourite line:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One neo-Nazi podcaster found a credit card processor that was fine with the content of his show but said he was untouchable for another reason: He was considered a money laundering risk because he dealt in cryptocurrency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I also covered the crossover between the Bitcoin subculture and people who buy into these ideas. The good news is that it&#8217;s really very small! The not-so-good news is that it&#8217;s greater than zero, and that Bitcoin started out this way. I don&#8217;t expect crypto people to be pleased with this section, but it&#8217;s also what&#8217;s out there in the subculture. Beware of fellow bitcoiners talking about international banker conspiracies and the Rothschilds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update: <\/strong>The piece has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweekjapan.jp\/stories\/world\/2019\/03\/post-11875.php\">translated for Newsweek Japan!<\/a> (No, I don&#8217;t get paid again.) The Foreign Policy version also made their list of <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2019\/03\/23\/our-best-weekend-reads-6\/\">best weekend reads.<\/a><\/p>\n<br><br><div align=\"center\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\"><img src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/become_a_patron_button.svg\" alt=\"Become a Patron!\" title=\"Become a Patron!\" width=217 height=51><\/a><br><p style=\"align:center;\" class=\"patreon-badge\"><i>Your subscriptions keep this site going. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\">Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nazis were very hopeful that Bitcoin was the way out of their problems with getting kicked off PayPal &#8230; but it didn&#8217;t work out that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,1150,1184],"class_list":["post-12360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-bitcoin","tag-foreign-policy","tag-neo-nazis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16531,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12360\/revisions\/16531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}