Defending Bitcoin: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 with Nic Carter - WBD666

Nic Carter is a Partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder
and Chairman of Coin Metrics. In this interview, we discuss Real
Bedford, ordinals, the Bitcoin fee market, Bitcoin culture wars,
layer 2 innovations, Chokepoint 2.0 and the 2022 banking crisis,
and how people can stand up for Bitcoin against the current US
administration.


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In categorising a covert attempt by the executive branch to
restrict access to Bitcoin and crypto as a modern iteration of
Operation Chokepoint, Nic Carter has brought much-needed
attention to an otherwise nebulous sense of unease. Nic has
clarified the meaning behind a series of different events, tying
together inconsistent messages and suspicious decisions. His
explicit analysis has even garnered the attention of a
presidential candidate, Robert F Kennedy Jnr.


At face value, Chokepoint 2.0 is about the government's hostility
towards the crypto industry in the wake of FTX. That Bitcoin will
be ensnared in this dragnet is of obvious concern. An innovation
that could revolutionise and democratise money and energy could
be restricted within the world's leading economy. However, there
is a bigger issue here: the circumvention of democratic norms.
These restrictions are occurring without debate or scrutiny.


Then, to add import on top of import, there is the underlying
rationale for these restrictions. In a week when the debt ceiling
is again the subject of political horse-trading to allow
sovereign debt to continue to grow to evermore eye-watering
levels, these restrictions are an implicit imposition of soft
capital controls on the American people. So, we have
unprecedented restrictions on people’s freedoms to protect stores
of value being done behind closed doors.


Put bluntly, the US government's attempts to restrict the growth
of the crypto industry by leaning on private banks are
unconstitutional and violate due process. The social contract is
being broken. Nic has suggested that injured parties should join
efforts to sue the government to enable legal oversight of these
decisions. In his opinion, this is a lawsuit that can be won.