The clock is ticking for Molly White.
Any day now — the crypto researcher doesn't know when — the Federal Election Commission could act on the complaint she filed against Coinbase in August.
White accused the US crypto exchange giant of violating campaign finance laws as it raised $25 million for the Crypto Political Action Committee, working with Public Citizen, a consumer rights group.
Coinbase has denied her allegations and the matter is now in the hands of the authorities. However, one thing is certain – White, a 31-year-old software engineer with 122,000 followers on X, has come a long way.
Since making snarky comments about rug pulls three years ago, White has now become something of an uncomfortable truth-teller in an industry eager to shake off the stigma of scandal and appeal to the mass market.
And by taking on something like Coinbase, which has a market cap of $41 billion, and creating an online tracker for crypto campaign cash, she became one of the biggest stories of the year.
'I'm used to getting this kind of criticism and the hate that comes with it.'
– Molly WhiteWhile Wall Street's digital assets and crypto industry elites have drifted into Washington, White envisions the web as an organic, grassroots space that rewards creativity instead of crass commercialization.
“Projects that promised to democratize finance failed or produced nothing of value,” White said in a wide-ranging interview. News.
Join the community to get our latest articles and updates“With the markets down, a lot of the interest these days is very financial — it's memecoin speculation, it's bitcoin ETFs. There has been little starry-eyed pushback against Big Tech.
Campaign cash tracking
White's critics — and there are many — may see her as a starry-eyed, naïve pundit who fails to grasp the business needs of the digital assets industry.
White didn't pull his punches. She called blockchain technology a “A solution looking for a problem” And lamented how ordinary investors are regularly losing money due to the sale of fraudulent outfits.The dream of financial freedom.”
Yet White is now backing up her zingers with action. First she started a website Follow Crypto To track the crypto industry's big spending on the election in July.
She also wrote articles Question articles Industry giants like Coinbase and Ripple are pivoting around the 2024 US general election.
This year, the crypto industry has grown $174 million Second only to Big Oil in campaign contributions for pro-choice candidates, according to Federal Election Commission records.
While all of this cash will go toward the Biden administration's crackdown on the industry, the idea that crypto supporters will vote as a coalition on November 5 is also animated.
White rejects this notion as myth.
“There's this narrative that there are all these voters out there who think crypto is a make-or-break issue, and if a candidate comes out in support of crypto they're going to win the vote,” White said.
“I don't think that's true. People care about the price of groceries or whether they can afford a house.
Meanwhile, her own influence is growing. In 2022, she advised aides to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, on crypto legislation.
In one of several profiles that appeared in mainstream publications, The Guardian The newspaper called her “The An astute critic of crypto frenzy.”
White has drawn the ire of many in the crypto-text, and often their posts are sexist. In August, an X user called She is “a cat lady with no more children.”
'A lot of Web3's pitch resonated with me. I said, 'Yes, we need to fix the web!''
– Molly WhiteAnd in July, Messari co-founder Ryan Selkis Said While he respects White as a critic, he also feels that “there's hate in you… hate from feminism that has lied to you and emptied you.”
White shrugs off the trolls. “I'm used to getting this kind of criticism and the hate that comes with it,” she said. “I've always had a very thick skin for that sort of thing.”
Editing Wikipedia
Personally, White cut a rebellious figure. She loves jeans and sleeveless t-shirts and sports an undercut that brings a smile. CressidaA camera-toting character hunger games Movies.
White fell in love with the web after discovering Neopets, an online game where users take care of virtual pets. Interested in writing and research, White began editing Wikipedia when she was 13.
She focused Wikipedia articles Describes the rise of the alt-right and is devoted to the site's dispute resolution Committee. She still helps maintain the site and occasionally edits an entry.
Also, her passion for what she calls the web's “infinite canvas” grew. “Do you remember the first time you thought the web was magic?” She said as she opened it A show At the XOXO Festival in August.
One of the reasons for her entry into crypto in 2021 is the hope that Web3 will face the dominance of social media giants and corporate media.
“The Web3 pitch really resonated with me,” White said. “I was like, 'Yeah, we need to fix the web! We need to make it more equal and reduce the control that the two big platforms have over everyone's online presence.
But she quickly became disillusioned with the hype and theft running rampant in crypto. “Should I buy Dogecoin?” “That's what normal people ask,” she says. “It's this weird, divorced moment of reality.”
Pulls the tracking rug
That year she started a blog called Web3 is awesome, It tracks rug-pulling and extortion, among other issues.
As the crypto industry began building a war chest to influence the 2024 election, White shifted gears.
As of January, Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, as well as private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz, Raised An unprecedented $85 million, most of it through a super PAC called Fairshake.
This is the cost incurred for such a small industry. So she looked into Fairshake's funds.
Campaign Finance Complaint
She has teamed up with Public Citizen, a consumer rights group, to dig into White's campaign finance records for evidence that Coinbase is violating campaign finance rules.
In a complaint filed on August 1, White and Public Citizen said Coinbase had a government contract at the time of the $25 million donation to Fairshake. It was banned and complained to the FEC.
On August 5, Paul Grewal, Coinbase's chief legal officer, stated that Coinbase is not a federal contractor because the government paid the company the proceeds of the seized crypto.
FEC They say Federal contractors are defined as individuals paid with funds appropriated by Congress. “Crypto assets acquired are not congressionally appropriated funds, period,” Grewal wrote in a post on X.
Seized crypto assets are not congressionally appropriated funds, period. There is nothing new about the FEC complaint filed by a self-described crypto critic and Director of Public Citizen Research, but it is notable that there is no minimum hurdle to file such a complaint, and it…
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) August 5, 2024Seized crypto assets are not congressionally appropriated funds, period. There is nothing new about the FEC complaint filed by a self-described crypto critic and Director of Public Citizen Research, but it is notable that there is no minimum hurdle to file such a complaint, and it…
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) August 5, 2024Grewal also called White's complaint “false information” and Removed She is “incompetent in election law and funded by who exactly?”
Grewal was surprised by the subdued voice, White He replied She is independent and supported by private donations.
“Bottom line about 'who's funding me' is below you,” she posted.
White amended his complaint to include a rebuttal of Grewal. An FEC spokesperson said News The agency does not comment on pending matters.
existence
Now, with the election looming, White is turning her attention to social media and “digital sovereignty.”
“I want to write about how to establish a presence on the Internet that is not controlled by Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg,” she says. News.
There is no doubt about the stakes of white existence.
“If we want a true democracy where people's voices are almost equal, billionaires shouldn't be donating huge, huge amounts of money when ordinary people don't have that kind of influence,” she said.
Joanna Wright writes about the policy for News. Reach her at [email protected]. Edward Robinson News' Story editor. Contact him at [email protected].
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