On a slightly lighter note concerning cryptocurrencies comes this news from the recent primary in Oregon:
Speaking of the Democratic establishment getting one wrong: Biden aside, the party more broadly didn’t fight too hard for [Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon]. But a PAC affiliated with House Democratic leaders did spend $1 million on a candidate in the neighboring 6th District, Carrick Flynn. Flynn is trailing state Rep. Andrea Salinas, 38 percent to 19 percent.
That investment in an apparently losing candidate, though, pales to Flynn’s biggest benefactor: cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. His Protect Our Future PAC spent more than $11 million on Flynn — a stunning sum for one out of 435 House seats — and it appears to have failed badly. [WaPo]
Two days later and the numbers for Flynn haven’t changed much. It’s astounding that someone would spend that much money during primary season to boost a candidate. Sure, some of that money might leak over to the general election as well – that is, if Flynn had won. But he lost, and badly.
Proof, I suppose, that some votes, and voters, cannot be bought. Even with the mystic value of cryptocurrency. There’s a corollary in that mass of sheep-doo somewhere, but I’m not digging for it too enthusiastically. It’ll be covered in doo.
And in other news, the Middle East appears to be getting enthusiastic about crypto-everything, if I’m to believe this slightly mystifying fragment of an article in GDN Online:
MANAMA: A Saudi-Bahraini family business that hosts the Bahrain Comic Con has become the first in Bahrain to accept cryptocurrencies and NFTs as payment. Salman Bukhari, managing partner at Dallah, told the GDN in an exclusive interview that he and his brothers decided to be early-adopters of the trend that’s sweeping across the world .
I couldn’t read anymore unless I registered, and I didn’t feel like incurring any more spam, so I guess I won’t be learning how an NFT (non-fungible tokens) can be used for payment. After all, an NFT is going to vary in subjective value over time. Only when buyer and seller agree on a price is a value briefly fixed. That makes payment in NFTs, at best, cumbersome.
Very odd.
