【Michael Maien】

Cryptocurrency is Michael Maienrotten to the core.

So argues the co-founder of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer, in a long Twitter thread published Wednesday which is sure to spark backlash among the crypto faithful. Palmer makes the case that, contrary to utopian promises of decentralized finance and banking the unbanked, crypto as it actually exists in the world merely serves to help the rich get richer.

"After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity," he writes.

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Palmer goes on the argue that cryptocurrency institutions have all the undesirable traits of more traditional financial markets and institutions, but with none of the safeguards.

It's the worst of both worlds, in other words.

"Financial exploitation undoubtedly existed before cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is almost purpose built to make the funnel of profiteering more efficient for those at the top and less safeguarded for the vulnerable," he continues.

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Indeed, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is notoriously fraud ridden. In 2018, a study found that almost 80 percent of initial coin offerings the previous year were scams. Major exchanges steal from their customers with surprising regularity, and even the big and supposedly reputable players like Coinbase and Binance have struggled to fulfill basic promises.

And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of shady pump-and-dump schemes helmed by unscrupulous celebrities.

Palmer points out that even when things are working as they're supposed to, the world of cryptocurrency isn't exactly friendly to the mom and pop investor.

"Lose your savings account password? Your fault. Fall victim to a scam? Your fault. Billionaires manipulating markets? They're geniuses."

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Palmer used Twitter's conversation settings feature to prevent people from replying directly to his tweets. That didn't stop people from quote-tweeting him, however, with many surprised that it took him "years" to reach what they saw as an obvious conclusion.

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But hey, not everything can catch on as quickly as NFTs.