One theory for why FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried avoids making a case for the use-value of cryptocurrencies is that he actually doesn’t believe there is one. But why would a paper billionaire even publicly flirt with the idea of calling his business a Ponzi, even if he secretly believes it to be true? Part of Bankman-Fried’s brand is that he is an “effective altruist,” a branch of utilitarian philosophy in which categorical moral claims are applied to everything except for systems of political economy. In short, it’s an easy way to rationalize making a lot of money in a scammy fashion and then giving it all away to charity, as Bankman-Fried has said he plans to do.
Even if this is the case, it would be a ludicrously cynical bet, and an ethically misguided one, too. Had an entrepreneur taken a similar approach during the thrift crisis, they would have been lining their pockets with dollars that, deployed honestly, could have built homes in which families could live. In the case of crypto, it’s waste all the way down: as Bankman-Fried surely knows, crypto mining is a filthy business, generating millions of tons of CO2 emissions in the United States alone every year.
Tales from the Thrifts: From savings-and-loan crooks to crypto hucksters
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