Cross Tabs 20: "Cool Poll, Crypto Bro" with Molly White
This week we're taking a break from national polling to talk about polling done by a group trying hard to influence the outcome of various races this cycle: crypto bros. The influence and agenda of the crypto industry is lurking behind a lot of the candidates and their policy positions. Crypto PACs are raising and spending over $100 million on 2024 races. It's in crypto's interests to portray itself as representing a large voting bloc who will vote based on a candidate's position on crypto — via industry-funded polls making claims about American's crypto behavior and beliefs. They seem to be cutting through: the RNC adopted an entire plank of crypto-industry pet positions into their party platform.
Who better to talk through these polls, PACs, and policy positions than cryptoresearcher Molly White. She joins me to break down the way the industry is trying to persuade through polls, and why we need more journalists and politicos to bring a much higher level of scrutiny to industry polling.
Resources
- Citation Needed - a newsletter featuring explainers of developments in the cryptocurrency industry. We talked about this article.
- Web3 Is Going Great - a project to track examples of blockchains/crypto/web3 technology projects that aren't going very well.
- Follow the Crypto
- "The Black Investors Who Were Burned by Bitcoin", The Atlantic
- Pew Research report on crypto
- Adam Tooze on crypto & the GOP
Our guest
Molly White is a researcher, software engineer, and prominent critic of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based projects. She is best known for her website Web3 is Going Just Great, which documents only some of the many disasters in the cryptocurrency and web3 industries, and for her Follow the Crypto election spending tracker.
Your Host
Farrah Bostic is the founder and Head of Research & Strategy at The Difference Engine, a strategic insights consultancy. Learn more at thedifferenceengine.co and connect with Farrah on LinkedIn.