Putin's Interest in Ethereum and Crypto Should be Cause for Alarm, Not Excitement

As Coin Telegraph reported on June 4th, Vladimir Putin recently met with Vitalik Buterin at the International Economic Form in St. Petersburg to discuss Russia's interest in crytpocurrency and Ethereum (https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-vladimir-putin-meets-vitalik-buterin-endorses-ethereum). Looking at the reaction of the Coin Telegraph and much of the crypto community, you might conclude that crypto's favorite son, and the crypto community vicariously through him, were being bestowed with a great honor. "Little Vitalik got to meet President Putin today, we're so proud! Do you know what this means for the family?"

Clearly the crypto community has collective amnesia regarding the former KGB agent and his murderous ways. See this murder for example: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-likely-approved-murder-alexander-litvinenko-inquiry-n500996 or this entire book about Putin's culture of death: https://www.amazon.com/Putins-Labyrinth-Spies-Murder-Russia/dp/0812978412. Instead, Coin Telegrath gives us a cute picture of Putin and Vitalik hand and hand with their Ethereum love child, strolling through a park.

Maybe you don't believe Putin is a murderer, or maybe you don't care. Putting aside Putin's crimes for the moment, let's consider what exactly is going on here. This meeting is the confluence of two very powerful forces. On the one side is cryptocurrency, which was designed to eliminate government control of the world's money supply, and on the other we have a government who wants control of their country's money supply (if not the world's) and will do anything to attain it.

This is not a meeting between two rival companies, e.g. Microsoft and Apple, to hash out their differences and we'll all get a cool product out of it. This is the meeting of two diametrically opposed forces, freedom and government. Putin and his government are not looking to compromise with freedom, and freedom most certainly should not be looking to compromise with government. This is a face to face meeting between two opponents locked in mortal combat. Who is more likely to gain the upper hand at this point? A decentralized fledgling network of idealists and day traders who rely on near unanimity to make decisions, one rumor away from a 50% drop in market cap? Or a powerful organization holding a legal monopoly on force and orders of magnitude more resources at their disposal - not to mention an army they've shown willingness to use against their own people? An idealist says freedom will eventually win out, a realist says, direct conflict between the two will only result in losses for freedom and should be avoided at all cost.

Russia's apparent reversal on their stance against cryptocurrency should be seen for what it is, the realization by a government that a minor annoyance has turned into a real threat, and the decision by that government to change tactics and co-opt that threat for its own purposes. Putin's intention is not to partner with Ethereum so that the benefits of decentralized blockchain technology and cryptocurrency technology may be experienced by the citizens of Russia. Putin's intention, much like the biblical idiom of the wolf in sheep's clothing, is to cozy up to the cryptocurrency community, and give the impression that Russia is embracing crypto, all the while working to employ crypto technology to strengthen his government.

While we're all fawning over Putin like teenagers at an Elvis Presley concert, Putin will establish a government cryptocurrency (the so called Russia coin) and put in place regulations that will limit and weaken all other cryptocurrencies. Putin's government, like all governments pretending to allow freedom, will compete with the market on unfair terms. It will place their own government controlled currency in direct competition with decentralized cryptocurrencies, and then use the law, the police, and military if necessary, to stack the odds in favor of Russia coin, ensuring that Russia coin will become the only successful cryptocurrency in Russia. Short term legal concessions, allowing the adoption of other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum only serve to acclimatize Russian citizens to abandoning paper money and using cryptocurrency. This path of least resistance is the path to Russia coin.

That the crypto community cannot seem to see this is astonishing, but not inexplicable. Certainly there is a large percentage of cryptocurrency users who are apathetic, or outright supporters of government regulation. But more significantly, the reason why this is seen as a positive is the ostensible financial benefits investors in cryptocurrency will receive when millions of additional Russian investors add their demand to the crypto market. The desire to profit has blinded our senses and usurped the goal of spreading freedom throughout the world. Instead, the potential for even more profits has whipped the crypto currency community into a frenzy, much like dripping blood into shark invested waters. The terrible truth is however, that the blood is our own.