The Political Dilemma of Encryption Technology: Beware of Single-Issue Politics

In recent years, cryptocurrency has become a hot topic in political policies. Governments around the world are considering introducing legislation to regulate blockchain business participants. Although some of the proposed bills seem reasonable, there are also concerns that governments may take extreme measures, such as classifying most tokens as securities or banning self-custody wallets. With these concerns arising, the weight of cryptocurrency issues in the political arena is increasing, and there is even a trend to support parties and candidates based solely on their attitudes towards cryptocurrency.

However, this trend is worth noting, especially because this decision-making approach is likely to contradict the values that originally attracted people to the encryption space.

The encryption field often overly focuses on the central position of "money" and the freedom to hold and spend money ( or tokens ), viewing it as an important political issue. While this is indeed an important struggle, solely focusing on cryptocurrencies and blockchain is unsustainable and does not align with the ideology that originally created encryption technology.

The cypherpunk movement created encryption technology, which embodies a broader spirit of technological liberalism advocating for the use of free and open technology to protect and enhance individual freedom. As early as the 2000s, the main issue was resisting restrictive copyright legislation. Bitcoin is seen as an extension of this spirit in the field of internet payments.

In addition to payment freedom, there are other equally important technological freedoms:

• Freedom of communication and privacy
• Freedom and privacy-friendly digital identity
• Freedom of thought and privacy
• The ability to obtain high-quality information

The fundamental goal of participating in cryptocurrency often transcends the technology itself. Therefore, we should not only support cryptocurrencies but also the fundamental goals and the entire set of policy implications they entail.

Internationalism has always been a socio-political cause cherished by the cypherpunk movement. The internet and encryption have the potential to facilitate the flattening of the global economy. Therefore, when judging politicians, their level of concern for the outside world should also be taken into account.

Furthermore, being friendly towards cryptocurrency now does not mean that it will be the same in the future. It is worth examining politicians' past positions on cryptocurrency and related topics to predict their future shifts in viewpoints.

Decentralization and acceleration may conflict with each other. Typically, regulation is harmful to both, but they may also conflict with one another. Understanding the potential values of politicians is important to predict which side they will prioritize in case of conflict.

It is worth being vigilant about the "encryption-friendly" attitude of dictatorial governments. They often support encryption uses that benefit themselves while cracking down on those that do not. If a politician supports encryption today but is pursuing power or flattering power, this may indicate their future attitude towards encryption.

By publicly supporting candidates who "support encryption currency" solely because they "support encryption currency," a harmful incentive may be cultivated. This could lead politicians to believe that as long as they support encryption currency trading, they will gain support, while ignoring other important issues.

Everyone can help create a more respectable incentive mechanism. The key question is: Are the reasons politicians support encryption correct? Do they share the same vision for the development of 21st-century technology, politics, and economics? Do they have a good positive vision and go beyond short-term concerns?

If so, then we should support them and clearly state that this is the reason for supporting them. If not, then either stay out of it or seek better alliances.