Inequality, Part VII: Crypto

A perfect merger of predation and corruption

On June 1 I published what I said would be the first of two primers on rising inequality. But I kept finding more things that I felt needed saying, so it turned into a six-part story arc.

The good news is that I believe that I’ve finished that story arc, at least for now, with the last two posts. Part V showed how predatory financialization has helped create extreme wealth. Part VI examined how wealth is converted into political power. And that was supposed to be it, for now.

But given the topics of those last two primers, it seemed to me that I should close out with an in-the-moment case study: A discussion of the rise of the crypto industry, which can be seen as a sort of hyper-powered example of predatory finance, influence-buying and corruption.

Beyond the paywall, I’ll discuss the following:

1. The (strange) economics of cryptocurrency

2. Crypto as a form of predatory finance

3. How crypto drives inequality

4. How the crypto industry has corrupted our politics