Brad Sherman seems to be a fierce opponent of cryptocurrency. He recently made numerous public comments on cryptos, but they can all be summed up by this telling quote,
“Cryptocurrency accomplishes nothing except facilitating terrorism, narcotics and tax evasions.”
The idea that cryptos are solely used for malfeasance is, of course, preposterous. Any negotiable instrument can be used for legal, or illegal transactions. Today cryptocurrency can be used much in the same way that fiat currency that is created by central banks is used. The one big problem for bank-backed politicians like Brad Sherman is that cryptos cut out the intermediaries.
As Brad Sherman mistakenly asserts, “there is nothing that can be done with cryptocurrency that cannot be done with sovereign currency.” This is a blatantly false statement from a man that is directly supported by third-party settlement companies. Cryptocurrency can be used for things that, “sovereign currency,” simply can’t.
An Argentine bank, Banco Masventas, proved this when they replaced SWIFT with Bitcoin. Instead of submitting to a payment system that is controlled by the global central banks, Banco Masventas uses Bitcoin to make large, international currency transfers. This new use for Bitcoin is far cheaper than SWIFT, and accomplishes the transaction in a day.
In a sense Brad Sherman is right, the SWIFT system almost never allows for transactions with sovereign currency to be made quickly. Like many things in the established financial system, SWIFT has gotten by with a de-facto monopoly for decades, and now that looks like it could be changing.
Brad Sherman looks a lot like a shill
No one in their right mind would assert that cryptocurrency offers nothing in addition to central bank created fiat currency. It should come as no surprise that Brad Sherman’s largest campaign donations in his last reelection bid came from Allied Wallet, which is a credit card payment processor. In other words, one of the industries that is most at-risk from cryptocurrency adoption at a consumer level.
When a crypto investor who goes by the name of “CryptoDog” on Twitter mentioned this connection between Brad Sherman and Allied wallet to the Twitterverse, he was promptly told to, “STOP,” by none other than Brad Sherman himself. Clearly, Brad Sherman seems a little touchy about the potential for pay-for-play allegations.
https://twitter.com/TheCryptoDog/status/1019673334689120257
https://twitter.com/TheCryptoDog/status/1019709980692246528
Unfortunately for Congressman Sherman, statements like this make his opinions look very compromised
“They (cryptocurrencies) help terrorists and criminals move money around the world. They help tax evaders. They help startup companies commit fraud, take the money, and 1% of the time they actually create a useful business, but that again I dare say that some tiny percent of all larceny and crime helps finance something that turns out to be useful.”
This Isn’t Going to “STOP”
It has been pointed out many, many times that currencies like the US Dollar can be used for illegal purposes. Pretty any medium of exchange can be used by criminals, but the US banking system is equally likely to engage in corrupt, illegal acts that help to support terrorism and fraud.
The US Government takes a harsh view of Iran, and yet, under President Obama they transferred more than a billion US dollars to Iran, in cash.
Iran has been identified by the US government as a state sponsor of terrorism, which makes this massive cash transaction look pretty strange. Given how easy it is to pick up a nuclear warhead in Bulgaria, the entire sideshow around the Iranian nuclear program is deranged, now that Iran has so many US dollars sitting around.
There are also multiple instances of major money center banks like JP Morgan helping to launder money, and numerous other illegal acts. The amount of money that JP Morgan has paid in federal fines under CEO Jamie Dimon is in the tens of billions of USD, which would suggest no small amount of wrongdoing on their part.
Part of the reason why cryptocurrencies may be so popular with the younger generations is the level of dishonesty that is present in major governments. It would be hard to take anything that Brad Sherman says about cryptocurrencies seriously, given his connections to banking, and obvious hate for an incredible new technology.
