Cryptofascists

Bitcoin is worth more than ever before because cowardly terrorists have become household heroes.

I’m no economist. Although I’ve some idea of how markets sort of work as a result of having lived a while and paying attention, the intricacies of how the market operates are regularly lost on me. And that’s okay, because as a result of having lived a while and paying attention, it’s pretty clear that most of those people that understand the market intricacies are just as fucking clueless as I am. There are plenty of economic crises that attest to that fact.

That said, they usually have some idea as to why things are the way they are, but when it comes to Bitcoin you don’t need an economist to tell you the way the wind is blowing, because they think it’s somehow linked into the larger economic system. Now, although it is because a lot of people in the larger economic system are buying into it, it’s not really beholden to the same winds.

There are a lot of people utterly perplexed at Bitcoin’s current meteoric rise in value. As of right now it’s $100,292.46 per coin.

Bitcoin has many uses, but the primary one is that it’s very difficult to work out who’s holding it. It sits outside of the purview of market operators, much to the chagrin of many a government, and that was kind of the point of it. It’s unregulated by its very nature, which is attractive to some libertarians out there. But, there really aren’t enough libertarians out there to account for the popularity, so that just leaves the other group of people that are interested in having money thrown around without anyone being able to do anything about it. Criminals.

Bitcoin has more than doubled its value since the 7th of October, and it’s because of the 7th of October that it’s done this. The reasoning is incredibly simple. Israel and Palestine are at war in the Gaza Strip, and the Gaza Strip is operated by a registered terrorist organisation, being Hamas. For reasons that are beyond me, Hamas has become rather popular in many a Western country, as Israel has been branded as colonialists by a bunch of people that don’t know what that word means. Regardless of where you sit in regards to that particular issue, one part of the conflict is indisputable.

Israel is a recognised nation that is run by a legitimate government. You may not like what that government does, who it consists of, or any of the history surrounding it (although I suspect that most people claiming to know the history have little to no real knowledge of it), but it’s 100% legitimate. If you want to donate to Israel, throw, “Donate to Israel” into a Google search and you’ll get multiple, legitimate options to do so.

If you want to donate to the Hamas led Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it’s a criminal offence to do so. Hamas is a registered terrorist organisation, probably because they’re reprehensible, cowardly, pieces of shit that raped and murdered over 1,000 innocent people on the 7th of October, 2023, and that’s the exact sort of thing that the organisation explicitly wants to do. If you give money to Hamas, and the government finds out about it in Australia, the US, the UK, and so on, then you’re probably going to jail.

So they’re getting Bitcoin.

The branding of Hamas as terrorists has done little to dissuade many people in the West from openly praising them as heroes. Seeing as they’re generating this level of support, they’ll also be generating financial support, only it can’t come in the form of a regular, tax deductible donation. It has to, by necessity, go out as Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency to avoid triggering the attention of authorities. Well, they sometimes get the attention of authorities, but it’s still easy to slip the net. Much easier than a regular bank transfer, in any case.

Hamas has been generating funds using crypto for a very long time, likely because they had few other options to do so. This recent boom in popularity has likely led to more donations, and as various sympathisers and Islamic communities across the world try to support the cause, interest in Bitcoin has increased. Hence the spike.

With the war showing no sign of ending in the short term, I suspect Bitcoin will continue to climb. The cowardly leaders of Hamas, sitting in luxury in Qatar or Iran, will lap up the profits, and the Palistinians they force to stand in front of Israeli missiles will continue to die. And as long as that continues, they’ll continue to profit from the continual donations.

It’s the economy, and it’s stupid.