Bitcoin a ‘postmodern pyramid scheme’?

This spring, Mayor Mattie Parker breathlessly tweeted in fluent crypto boosterism, “We’re making Fort Worth the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin. We launch at 2:30 p.m. CT today, livestreamed here on Twitter.” Since that giddy April day, when Fort Worth burst into the bitcoin mining world, the cryptocurrency has taken a nosedive. CNBC says, “bitcoin has lost around 58% of its value in the second quarter of 2022.” This is no small thing. Based on reporting by Forbes, “approximately 107 [million] Americans invested in crypto for the first time in the last two years,” so during a time of economic uncertainty, bitcoin, which has advertised itself as a hedge against inflation, has proven to be a terrible investment for millions of our family members, friends, and neighbors.

But they’re all suckers who deserve what they get when they invest in what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has described as a “postmodern pyramid scheme,” right? Perhaps, but as citizens of this city, we are, whether we like it or not, involved because Fort Worth, in its excitement to burnish its lackluster credentials as a high-tech entrepreneur hub and appeal to the libertarian-leaning technogentsia, prematurely lent Fort Worth’s good name to bitcoin and by extension other cryptocurrencies, giving them some veneer of “respectability.” While I’m sure Fort Worth hasn’t helped bitcoin as much as Matt Damon’s embarrassingly pretentious “Fortune Favors the Brave” commercial, we should still all be concerned about lending our city’s name to something that can potentially tarnish it.