Coinbase is the latest crypto company to receive approval from the Trump administration to obtain a (limited) bank charter.

Yet another illustration why you don’t want to depend on AI as a cognitive crutch - what happens when it gets turned off?

Great. I’m now being trolled by some AI tool directly in my inbox.

This is the Senator who is deeply in bed with crypto, thinks the problem is that Democrats use Funny Words, & hangs out with the Abundance/Popularism/Deciding to Win crowd that pals around with right-wing extremists & doesn’t see Black voters. So no, let’s not do this. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Mystery solved by @reuters.com: SEC's new enforcement chief bailed -- after 6 most on job -- after getting pushback for pursuing charges that touched Trump's circle. www.reuters.com/business/fin...

Good move by NY. Keeping cash in circulation doesn’t just promote equity. It’s also good policy for disaster preparedness. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

what a fantastic project from @profhilaryallen.bsky.social! A serialized, accessible book by an expert in her field

When I present my academic work on the political economy of Silicon Valley, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the response "they wouldn't do that - it would lose them money." But @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social has it in a nutshell here - "control, power, impunity" are the real goals.

Feeling vindicated... fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Hoping that Bsky can help me out with recommendations for some good history/sociology books on gambling. What have you got for me?

The cryptocurrency industry super PACs dumped $14.2 million into the Illinois primaries. 90% of that – $12.8 million – was wasted, in that it went to opposing Democratic candidates who won their primaries (Stratton in the Senate race, Ford in H-07) or supporting their opponents.

Let crypto support become a scarlet letter for every D candidate

I’m excited to be a speaker at @NCRC’s 2026 #JustEconomy Conference on April 15. I will be speaking about the extractive crypto industry - if you're interested, you can register here: www.ncrc.org/conference

Of course Andreessen hates introspection. If he did any, he'd have to acknowledge that he's not that special; mostly just lucky enough to have been enrolled at Illinois when it was participating in an NSF program funding the development of the Mosaic web browser. fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

This post reminded me of a great paper by @jodishort.bsky.social Lots of government/public services shouldn’t be run like businesses, but the double whammy is that they’re expected to run as businesses but aren’t even afforded the tools that businesses rely on to prosper

So true and I’m seeing it everywhere.

Because blockchains suck for payments processing (and pretty much everything else) fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Why is it always Andreessen Horowitz? … and always Chuck Schumer?

Always delighted to see journalists using @followthecrypto.org data in their reporting! If you're a journalist following campaign finance and run across crypto spending, I'm always happy to talk to you.

Al Green's runoff opponent Christian Menefee has an "A" from Stand With Crypto. That should be treated as a scarlet letter. www.standwithcrypto.org/politicians/... I'd love people to start using Stand With Crypto as a resource to check which candidates will sell out to tech oligarchs

(from fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...)

AI tech & crypto bros are subverting both political parties to their will. You should thus be alarmed re: prospect of “bipartisan” legislation relevant to these industries, like federal “permitting reform,” which also has energy industry backing. Absent opposition, we’re all about to get rolled.

Make 'em laugh fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

At the center of the prediction markets boom is a bitter rivalry between two 20-something billionaire fintech bros vying for their companies to be distinct, despite everyone constantly lumping them together "For them, it's existential," a former Kalshi employee told me www.npr.org/2026/03/06/n...

Who could possibly have predicted this? fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Jenkins worries that if make the billionaires the enemy, we'll lose out on their noblesse oblige.... Here's a discussion of the eugenicist authoritarian priorities shared by many SF billionaires: fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha... I'd just HATE to lose out on those....

So Dorsey says he's cutting workforce because of AI and everyone just takes it on faith? Without asking if maybe imprudent overhiring a while back + exposure to tanking crypto might help explain? As the economy sours watch as more cos do this "AI-washing" of layoffs... www.ft.com/content/50b9...

Trumpism won't last forever. But the oligarchy currently being built by tech billionaires will certainly try.

Thanks to @ritholtz.bsky.social for a fantastic conversation ranging from finance to law to tech to politics to psychology, interrogating the hype of crypto, AI, and fintech. www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2...

You can almost see why private equity/private credit was so anxious to expand their investor base — to your 401(k). #$OWL

Thanks to @ritholtz.bsky.social for a fantastic conversation ranging from finance to law to tech to politics to psychology, interrogating the hype of crypto, AI, and fintech. www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2...

This is a very good call. The AI and crypto kingpins (incl in both cases, Andreessen Horowitz) want to use campaign contributions (or fear thereof) to extort laws the public hates. These kingpins want Reps to comply in advance. @captmarkkelly.bsky.social has said no. Whither the other Dems?

This is a really important (and depressing) thread from @gilduran.com. Even if the threat of Trumpism is addressed, the threat posed by Silicon Valley billionaires will persist. I explore this pernicious political economy in my book Fintech Dystopia: fintechdystopia.com

"Meta is preparing to spend $65 M this year to boost state politicians who are friendly to the AI industry...To do that, Meta is quietly starting two new super PACs... The new PACs join two others already started by Meta, one of which is focused on California" www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/t...

From DealBook today, Schumer is once again encouraging Dems to fold on crypto....making it abundantly clear once again that he'll always fold for the billionaires. See also, Gavin Newsom.

AI PACs are following Crypto PACs' playbook to a T (probably because a16z is the driving force behind both). Notably, the ads these PACs fund don't mention crypto or AI, because a16z knows that both are toxic to voters. nymag.com/intelligence...

AI is not inevitable. If we had sane people in government that were not in thrall to billionaire tech CEOs, LLMs could be regulated, forced to obey existing copyright laws, and banned from places where their use is inappropriate, such as college classes. This should be a moderate position.

As a start, let's make sure we all laugh at it... fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

@davekarpf.bsky.social @lizzieohreally.bsky.social Imo there are parallels here with how SBF tried to position FTX (politically and morally) as the Dem-affiliated "good guys" in crypto. Of course FTX did fraud/played both sides of the aisle, then Coinbase/Circle decided to try out being "good"...

“Newsom currently finds himself aligned with Peter Thiel…in an effort to kill a union-backed billionaire tax that would help offset Trump’s healthcare cuts…[N] regularly bows down to the powerful California interests bankrolling the very authoritarianism from which he claims he can save the nation.”

This isn’t a new playbook - Andreessen Horowitz more or less lobbied the crypto markets into existence (along with a bunch of other fintech). Lobbying and marketing - rather than finding good tech- is WHAT THEY DO. fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Abundance has a new 501(c)(4) group to help push its deregulatory message according to reporting by Axios. "Next American Era" will be headed up by former DCCC chair and current OpenAI/Oracle lobbyist Cheri Bustos, further integrating data center construction with abundance

I really enjoyed my conversation with Titi and Zakiya at Dope Labs. Talking about the limitations of fintech, financial inclusion, and our crypto-captured Congress. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

This is my beat. It all depends on how interconnected crypto and the traditional financial system have become. See: driverlessfinancebook.com fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Also: crypto's potential to cause a financial crisis is seen as a feature and not a bug www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/u...

Non-USD stablecoin volume is about $1.5 billion; USD stablecoin volume is about $300 billion (if DefiLlama's nos are right) The USD market is the ballgame - but not because Americans use them for real-world payments. Criminals and gamblers just like their USDs fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

First, this is great news. Second, does this help explain what's happened to crypto prices lately? (Pig butchering scams use crypto for payment)

Nothing says "we're so decentralized and intermediary-less that we need Congress to pass new legislation to accommodate our decentralization and intermediarilessness" than a crypto exchange intervening to prop up crypto prices.

A bunch of new reports coming out confirming what's long been obvious if you cared to look: stablecoins are for crime and for crypto speculation. Congress' bipartisan passage of the GENIUS Act for stablecoins was a huge abdication of the public interest. fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...