By Jim Mignano<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo is Bitcoin money<\/a>?\u201d people often ask when I mention studying digital currency. Usually, my answer is some admittedly uninspiring variation of \u201cit depends,\u201d or \u201cwell\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As it turns out, some pretty influential voices are clearing up the answer. In the midst of a horrible war, crypto has been all over the news. Key state actors\u2013namely the governments of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States\u2013are treating crypto as a form of money through both word and deed. (The irony is glaring, considering some crypto motivations to operate independent of the state, but that’s for another post.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take for example, the Ukrainian government campaign to raise donations via crypto<\/a>. The campaign amounts to a recognition of crypto by the Ukrainian state. But the move isn\u2019t just symbolic. To date, the Ukrainian government has received over $50 million in donated crypto<\/a>. And in a surprising contrast to the convention that crypto can\u2019t be used to purchase much of value<\/a>, Michael Chobanian, the founder of Kuna.io, reports that \u201cninety percent of [Ukrainian crypto fund] payments are done in crypto only<\/a>.\u201d While the crypto campaign pales in comparison to other fundraising efforts, such as Ukraine\u2019s $277 million war bond auction<\/a>, it reflects how far crypto has come since Bitcoin was exchanged for pizza in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russian authorities have been far opaquer<\/a> in their approach to crypto. It is easy to see why. On the one hand, a robust crypto market may empower the Russian populace<\/a>. On the other hand, the Russian kleptocratic elite may use crypto to divert funds and circumvent sanctions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This second Russian application of crypto has drawn the U.S. government\u2019s attention. On March 7, 2022, the Treasury\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Department issued a \u201cred flag\u201d alert, explaining that financial institutions\u2019 obligation to assist in applying sanctions covers \u201cconvertible virtual currency.\u201d<\/a> With respect to compliance obligations<\/a>, FinCEN\u2019s alert places crypto on equal footing as \u201ctraditional fiat currencies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, is crypto money? These days, some key institutions are acting like it is. The debate over Bitcoin\u2019s properties and value will continue, but context matters. For the bank meeting its regulatory obligations, some crypto has effectively been deemed worthless. For the Russian watching their rubles plummet, converting into crypto may be a reasonable way to retain value. And for the Ukrainian soldier on the frontlines, it makes little difference whether they\u2019re supplied using crypto, as long as they\u2019re supplied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jim Mignano \u201cSo is Bitcoin money?\u201d people often ask when I mention studying digital currency. Usually, my answer is some admittedly uninspiring variation of \u201cit depends,\u201d or \u201cwell\u2026\u201d As it turns out, some pretty influential voices are clearing up the answer. In the midst of a horrible war, crypto has been all over the news. Key…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptography","category-government","tag-jim-mignano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6497,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions\/6497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nostatic.com\/lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}