Seán, Brian, Nettime,
Seán, you asked whether Trump seeks to maximise capital holdings
alongside his neo-fascist agenda. The answer is they're the same
mechanism. Here's the documented chain from stablecoin to state
violence, via this extract from New Design Congress' research
documenting digital identity infrastructure and its material
consequences. You haven't heard too much about this report, because a
US-based civil society actor targeted it with a cease and desist on 1
August 2025 that I am currently fighting. I wish I could say more about
this, but I have also been threatened with libel about the circumstances
leading up to 1 August 2025. Regardless, I'm reproducing the passage
here because I believe it’s important to understand exactly the stakes
we are dealing with:
---
Golumbia’s more recent analysis in /Cyberlibertarianism: The
Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology/, it becomes clear that
bitcoin is not an outlier but the prototype for a wider
cyber-libertarian cosmotechnics.[1] He describes how “the power of math
and cryptography” is supposed to supplant the levers of government,
building a “new digital topography of trust” that disempowers democratic
oversight and recentralises authority in the hands of those who control
the codebase and the computational resources required to run it. In
stepping back and evaluating the entirety of the infrastructure that
makes up the digitised society, Golumbia says of its cosmotechnics:
/ “At its narrowest core, cyberlibertarianism is a commitment to the
belief that digital technology is – or should be – beyond the oversight
of democratic governments – meaning democratic political sovereignty.
Frequently, the sentiment can be reduced to the view that democratic
governments cannot or must not regulate the internet – or, to flip this
formulation on its head, that the internet should be a place to which
laws do not (or cannot) apply. Even in this narrow form,
cyberlibertarianism is openly self-contradictory, alternating between
the view that governments are unable to use laws to regulate digital
technology and the view that governments must not be allowed to use laws
in this way. These two ideas are incompatible.”/ [2]
* But is Golumbia correct?* To determine this, we take one more step
back, to events that unfolded over the duration of this research
project. In the run‑up to Nayib Bukele’s victory in the 2019 Salvadorian
elections, Bitcoin maximalists such as Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert
raised campaign funds for Bukele in BTC.[3] [4] The Spanish newspaper
/El País/ reported that, following Bukele’s victory, Keiser and Herbert
were appointed to run El Salvador’s “National Bitcoin Office” by
presidential decree, acting as gate‑keepers for investors and can design
public policy.[5] Both are investors in Bitfinex/Tether and run crypto
funds, giving them a financial stake in the very ecosystem they regulate.
By 2021, those same donors engineered two large capital injections:
In the first instance, a /Reuters/ report from January 2025 noted
that stable‑coin issuer Tether announced plans to move its headquarters
to El Salvador after obtaining a digital‑asset licence. Tether CEO Paolo
Ardoino said the company’s executives would relocate and the firm would
hire locally. The first saw the Tether stable-coin declare its intent
and make preparations to move its legal base to the country after
negotiating tax holidays and regulatory carve-outs with Bukele’s
government.[6] [7] The same report detailed that Tether’s reserves are
primarily held in U.S. Treasuries custodied by Howard Lutnick’s
brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, and an investigation by /The Guardian/
further revealed Cantor Fitzgerald’s 5 percent in Tether and custodians
most of its US$134 billion in reserves, with El Salvador offers generous
tax breaks to lure crypto companies.[8]
In the second, /Reuters/ reported that half of the planned US$1
billion issue would be converted into bitcoin for the state’s treasury
and the other half would fund infrastructure and bitcoin mining. Bitcoin
evangelist and Blockstream chief strategist Samson Mow[9] said the
10‑year bonds would pay 6.5 percent interest and that multiple issues
were envisaged. This sale, known as the “Volcano Bond,” would
potentially divert 50% of proceeds into Bukele’s own Bitcoin treasury
and could bypass the IMF in the process.[10]
Within three months of the Tether deal, Bukele passed the Bitcoin
Law, making the cryptocurrency legal tender and mandating every adult to
enrol in a biometric cryptocurrency wallet called /Chivo/. El Salvador’s
Bitcoin Law allows bitcoin to be used in any transaction and requires
businesses to accept it, although people are not forced to pay in
bitcoin.[11] An analysis of the law by the James Madison Institute
explains that Article 7 compels “every economic agent” to accept bitcoin
when offered, while Article 12 exempts those without access to
technology;[12] it also stresses that the law does not force Salvadorans
to hold bitcoin and that the government provided a public wallet.
Regardless, the /Chivo/ wallet has already leaked 144‑GB of
personal data[13]; a breach containing high‑definition headshots and the
personal information — including names, birth dates, addresses and
identity numbers — for more than 5.1 million Salvadorans.[14] [15]
At the same time, security spending surged: Bukele broke ground on
the 40 000‑capacity CECOT megaprison in 2022.[16] This “Terrorism
Confinement Centre” is a structure of eight concrete blocks where cells
designed for more than 100 inmates have eighty bunks, minimal
ventilation and two toilets; At capacity, each prisoner would have only
0.6 square metres of space.[17] In the two years since its opening,
human rights groups have tracked deaths at the facility. A 2024 report
by /Cristosal/ states that at least 265 detainees have died in
Salvadoran custody since the state of emergency began, amid conditions
without light, hygiene or access to food.[18] [19]
The same playbook was attempted with Argentina’s libertarian
President Javier Milei. Ultimately a failed upstart of the right-wing
crypto project, Milei rode a similar wave of anti-establishment crypto
enthusiasm, promising to “obliterate” the central bank and mainstream
Bitcoin. After Milei endorsed the $LIBRA token on social media, the
token spiked and then collapsed and, a federal judge opened an
investigation into Milei’s role after eight wallets drained about US$99
million from the token’s liquidity pool.[20] Milei would then face
lawsuits in New York and public interrogation in Argentina over
allegedly illicit association and fraud[21] over his involvement in the
failed $Libra token.[22] [23] Opposition politicians called for Milei’s
impeachment and the Argentine fintech chamber likened the episode to a
“rug pull.”[24]
Over the course of half a decade, crypto’s libertarian promise
turned into hard policy power in the United States. Industry PACs and
dark-money groups spent more than US$130 million into the 2024 US
elections[25] and a further $10 million into Donald Trump’s 2025
inaugural fund,[26] securing the first openly pro‑crypto administration.
[27] Within weeks, the newly-elected Trump administration invoked the
Alien Enemies Act of 1798, labelled Venezuela’s /Tren de Aragua/ as an
“invasion force,” and authorised the removal of “any alien or lawful
permanent resident” linked to the gang, without notice or hearing.[28]
On 16 March 2025, amidst the wider off-the-street kidnappings by
masked and sometimes plain clothes Ice agents, a charter flight carried
238 Venezuelan asylum-seekers, most with no criminal convictions,[29]
from Texas to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, where they subsequently
disappeared.[30] Constitutional scholars note that the proclamation’s
language sweeps in green-card holders, defying Supreme Court precedent
that lawful permanent residents cannot be exiled without due-process
safeguards.[31] In 2025, the same crypto-carceral machinery that
targeted “foreign nationals” is now positioned to sweep up long-time
U.S. residents as well, via a digital-backed infrastructure with a
documented growing list of detainee deaths and inhumane conditions.[32]
Yuk Hui defines cosmotechnics as “the unification of the cosmic and
moral order through technical activities.” El Salvador’s Bitcoin
experiment has crystallised a crypto-carceral cosmotechnics:
Bitcoin‑as‑legal‑tender, the biometric Chivo wallet, and the 40
000-inmate CECOT megaprison fuse code and corporeality in a single
apparatus of control. *To evaluate this infrastructure, and digital
identity’s pivotal role in sustaining it, is therefore to confront what
Hui warns are the planetary stakes of allowing a single technological
cosmology to eclipse all others: when software is elevated to cosmic
law, the most malevolent desires emerge as its material outcome.*
---
You can find a pre-print/unpublished version of this report here. Please
feel free to share:
https://newdesigncongress.org/en/report/2025/the-digital-identity-event-horizon
On the discussion of "the state of things" as they stand today, the
writer John Ganz of /Unpopular Front/
<https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/to-my-readers> wrote a heart-felt
reflection, noting that after starting his newsletter in January 2021,
he could see that 'we were entering a new era in which the old verities
of American politics were no longer applicable.' The entire piece is
about his frustrations at being right, too early (something that I
assert becomes apparent upon a casual browse of New Design Congress'
2018-2025 body of work <https://newdesigncongress.org/en/everything>),
writing: 'To my dismay, this was not a universally shared opinion on the
left. I believed this new reality posed not just a significant political
issue but also an intellectual problem: it was harder and harder for
people to judge what was taking place.'
I wanted to put this in your inboxes because, like Ganz, I worry we do
not collectively understand the threats like we should. Indeed, nettime
itself is motivated to see digital systems as problematic but ultimately
liberating through encryption, decentralisation and collectivism. Amidst
all of the optimism around the 'future of money' from everyone from
Francesca Bria's digital blockchain Europe to the Future of Money
workshops and UBI efforts of those more to the left of the EU
Commission, the truth is that the only successful civilization-scale
Web3 project in existence is a fascist coup crypto-carceral
infrastructure pipeline that has not yet been fully reported on as one
solid infrastructure, let alone grappled with. The legacy of Web3 -
something built off the rhetoric of all three of these pillars - is as
violent and snarling as the drones on the streets of Minneapolis today.
However, unlike Ganz, I believe (with evidence) that digital societies
are brittle societies. So much of what is happening now is happening
because of a stubborn anchoring to the belief that, "the worst case
scenario will never happen." Only if we allow ourselves - with care - to
embrace and trace our fingers over the absolute end game scenarios will
we collectively be incentivised to move with decision and actually put
something else together that offers real answers.
For nettime specifically, a big part of the stubborn denial is adjacent
to the non fascist Web3 spheres - a resistance to fully embracing just
how much of the digital dream is inherently dangerous.
Footnotes are below.
Cade
----
1 David Golumbia, Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of
Digital Technology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2024).
2 Ibid.
3 You’re the Voice, “You’re the Voice – Ep. 20: Max Keiser & Stacy
Herbert – Bitcoin, Liberty & Hope,” YouTube, 8 February 2024.
4 John Knefel, “Tucker Carlson Guest Praises El Salvador’s
Authoritarian President for Failing Bitcoin Experiment,” Media Matters
for America, 1 December 2022.
5 David Marcial Pérez, “Crypto evangelists enter the Bukele government:
The dark business of bitcoin in El Salvador,” International, 2 April 2023.
6 Federico Maccioni, “Crypto firm Tether and its founders finalizing
move to El Salvador,” Reuters, 13 January 2025.
7 Jason Wilson, “Trump cabinet member’s links to El Salvador crypto
firm under scrutiny,” The Guardian, 14 May 2025.
8 Scott Melker, “Cantor Fitzgerald’s Tether Ties Raise Concerns as
Trump Nominates CEO for Commerce Secretary,” The Street, 30 November 2024.
9 Jonathan Laguán, “Meet Samson Mow, Architect of El Salvador’s Bitcoin
Bonds,” The Business of Business, 22 March 2022.
10 Jessie Willms, “On the Ground in El Salvador with Samson Mow and the
Volcano Bitcoin Bond,” Bitcoin Magazine, 22 March 2022.
11 Marcos Aleman, “El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender,” PBS News, 9
June 2021.
12 Andrea O’Sullivan, “Reason: Is El Salvador’s Embrace of
Bitcoin Good, Bad, or Both?”, The James Madison Institute, 6
July 2021.
13 Helen Partz, “El Salvador: Hackers Leak Code of State Bitcoin
Wallet,” Cointelegraph, 23 April 2024.
14 “Hackers filtran base con datos personales de 5.1 millones de
salvadoreños para descargar gratis,” El Economista, 6 April 2024.
15 David Bernal, “Filtran base con datos personales de 5.1 millones de
salvadoreños, tras no lograr venderlos en línea,” La Prensa Gráfica, 6
April 2024.
16 Devin B. Martinez, “CECOT: Bukele’s Mega-Prison Where ‘the Only Way
Out Is in a Coffin’,” MR Online, 22 April 2025.
17 Rhiannon Stevens, “What we know about CECOT, El Salvador’s
mega-prison taking Trump’s deportees,” ABC News Australia, 25 April 2025.
18 Amnesty International, “Unlawful Expulsions to El Salvador Endanger
Lives amid Ongoing State of Emergency,” 25 March 2025.
19 Pan Ho Liu, “Central America rights organization reports almost
80,000 arrests and over 250 deaths in El Salvador since 2022 state of
emergency”, JURIST News, 11 July 2024.
20 Elizabeth Howcroft and Hannah Lang, “Crypto worth $99 million
withdrawn from Milei-backed Libra token, researchers say,” Reuters, 20
February, 2025.
21 Nicolás Misculin and Lucinda Elliott, “Argentina federal judge to
probe Milei crypto scandal, stock index falls,” Reuters, 18 February 2025.
22 Javier Lorca, “Milei, Acusado en Nueva York por la Cripto $Libra:
‘Fue una Declaración Promocional Altamente Engañosa’,” El País, 30 July
2025.
23 Candelaria Schiappa-Pietra, “Milei’s ‘Iron Triangle’ Creaks from the
$Libra Cryptocurrency Scandal,” El País English, 24 February 2025.
24 Harriet Barber, “Javier Milei faces impeachment calls after
Argentina cryptocurrency collapse,” The Guardian, 17 February 2025.
25 Jasper Goodman, “Crypto Won the 2024 Elections. Now Comes the Easy
Part,” Politico, 8 November 2024.
26 Jasper Goodman, “Crypto Firms Pour Millions into Trump
Inauguration,” Politico, 17 January 2025.
27 Danny Nelson, “Trump Becomes First Major-Party Candidate to Accept
Crypto Donations,” CoinDesk, 21 May 2024.
28 Donald J. Trump, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the
Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua,” proclamation, 15 March
2025, The White House.
29 Mica Rosenberg et al., “Trump administration knew most Venezuelans
deported from Texas to a Salvadoran prison had no U.S. convictions,” The
Texas Tribune, 30 May 2025.
30 Human Rights Watch, “US/El Salvador: Venezuelan Deportees Forcibly
Disappeared,” 11 April 2025.
31 Congressional Research Service, “ArtI.S8.C18.8.7.2 Aliens in the
United States,” Constitution Annotated, accessed 30 July 2025.
32 Human Rights Watch, “El Salvador’s Prisons Are No Place for US
Deportees,” 13 March 2025.
On 25/01/2026 12:35, Sean Cubitt via nettime-l wrote:
now the brownshirts are all over Minnesota and unafraid of two-year-olds and
cameras. The nepo-Don’s u-turns all seem suspiciously responsive to market
responses to his more ludicrous adventures in rhodomontade: but lest that
sound like he cares about the wellbeing of the US economy, he has a direct
stake through his already immense holdings in stablecoin.
To an old leftie, the whole blockchain phenomenon looks like a scam; with
various large-scale dealers in arms, drugs and illicit money the major
beneficiaries. Perhaps the nettime hive mind has better insights. The world
order is surely political (and military) but it hasn’t stopped being economic.
We all look forward to the mid-terms, but is it the case that Trump seeks to
maximise his capital holdings while in office (to ensure dynastic succession?)
as much as he wants his neo-fascist agenda - and elections are only a small
part of the strategy?
Seán
On 25 Jan 2026, at 11:00 am,[email protected] wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Farewell to World Order (Brian Holmes)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:56:15 -0600
From: Brian Holmes<[email protected]>
To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets"
<[email protected]>
Cc: Sean Cubitt<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Farewell to World Order
Message-ID:
<canuitgxm0osgvw4u31omihtgtsn1kesj_dauqfom0rsltki...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
It's good to hear from you Sean.
Yes, I think that people should boycott the USA.
We who live here, however, have neglected our responsibilities too long. We
have to resist and ultimately defeat this monstrosity....
It is all going so fast, it makes you sick to your stomach. Today's murder
of a 37 year-old nurse, the lies and obscene justifications, the danger
faced by the people on the streets.... This is a time when the blur of
deliberate media overload combines precisely and willfully with issues of
life and death. It has been going on since the Ukraine war began. Now these
wars are coming home to their structural source.
solidarity, Brian
On Sat, Jan 24, 2026 at 10:35?AM Sean Cubitt via nettime-l <
[email protected]> wrote:
many thanks for this Brian, as ever incisive and insightful. The news
since includes draft dodger Corporal Bone Spurs accusing soldiers of
cowardice, and withdrawing military support from South Korea - which will
undoubtedly please Xi who must be obeyed. Putin likewise clearly delighted
at the shattering of the western alliance (after disbursing some major
bribes and campaign funding to get the UK out of Europe that shouldn?t be a
surprise). Someone pointed out that he and Netanyahu couldn?t attend the
launch of The Don?s alternative UN because they would have been arrested as
war criminals at Davos airport. Oh yeah, and the terrifying winter storms
have no connection to climate change (oddly nor did the summer wildfires or
the retreating polar ice that makes Greenland a tactical prize). The
profound racism, the manifest corruption and devotion to Big Oil are
business as usual, if more shameless than past domestic leaders, but
assaults on institutions and citizens on this scale seems to an outsider
relatively new.
Sharing this so you don?t feel you?re shouting in a bucket, and to make
damn sure I won?t visit the USA as long as the Big Orange is playing Louis
XIV in his kitsch ballroom
se?n
Se?n Cubitt
Honorary Professorial Fellow
School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne
Latest book: Good (aesthetic politics 2):
https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/publications/good
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------------------------------
End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 31, Issue 11
*****************************************
--
~
Cade Diehm
New Design Congress
https://newdesigncongress.org
Book a call:https://bookings.ndc.tools/shibco/online-meeting
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