The New York Times has long had an implacable animus towards all things blockchain, and last week decided to double down by publishing a stupid and dishonest op-ed titled “Crypto is pointless. Not even the White House can fix that.” Authored by a pair of economists from the Biden administration, the piece seized on Bitcoin dipping below $70,000 to make the case that this time the crypto industry is truly cooked, and that blockchain technology is just a glorified database that even Big Tech firms won’t touch. The authors top this off by claiming the previous administration made a good faith effort to work with the crypto industry, but had to take a tougher approach in the wake of the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal.
All of this is nonsense, and comes across as a last gasp for relevance by a dwindling band of Biden apologists. If you doubt it, go ask financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity, which this year accelerated their embrace of digital assets. Or poll the likes of Stripe, Shopify, or Meta about whether they agree blockchain is just another database. As for the claims of commonsense regulation, the authors fail to mention how federal judges repeatedly decried Biden-era crypto investigations as “arbitrary and capricious.” They also conveniently ignore that Bankman-Fried had deep ties to the Democratic party and committed his crimes on Biden’s watch.
This sort of mendacity informs the rest of the piece, and reflects the sort of motivated reasoning found in so much of the Times’ crypto coverage, and in other corners of the media as well. The question is why pieces like this get published in the first place. Does it simply reflect a backlash by media outlets against the grotesque crypto grifting of the Trump administration? Or does it reflect something broader—a contempt for new technology in general?
There is certainly evidence of a creeping anti-tech worldview in the media, one that even extends to the technology bible WIRED. Om Malik, my former mentor and one of the shrewdest observers of Silicon Valley, has lamented that WIRED used to be a “shiny beacon of light” but that tales of technology are now getting crowded out by stories about achieving the best-smelling scrotum (really). Malik is not alone. In February, former WIRED executive Keith Grossman pointed to a story about crypto and human trafficking to decry the publication’s excessive focus on politics and negativity—a position that received support from a former WIRED editor-in-chief among others.
It’s not black and white, of course. Stephen Levy, godfather of tech journalism, rightfully pointed out in response to Grossman that politics is a big part of technology right now. Others noted that, unlike 15 years ago, tech and crypto CEOs can no longer credibly portray their firms as upstarts and underdogs. And that, even as they amass great power in Washington, D.C., they show little interest in the great responsibility that goes with that.
It’s possible, however, to report on all this while also staying optimistic about the underlying technology–whether it be crypto, AI, self-driving cars, or the many other marvelous inventions that can improve our lives. Unfortunately, it feels that expressing views on technology has become yet another way to declare allegiance with one side or the other in our interminable culture wars. This is a shame. New technology, whether in the form of electricity or antibiotics or the internet, has always brought cause for excitement and the promise of a better future.
Crypto is no different. This is clear from Digital Gold, a 2015 book about the early history of Bitcoin whose back cover promises: “a brilliant and engrossing account of this new technology.” The book, probably still the best crypto work to date, is by a former New York Times journalist.
Jeff John Roberts [email protected] @jeffjohnroberts
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