In the view of the Animoca Chairman and Web3 entrepreneur, the media’s negative portrayal of cryptocurrency is partly linked to its association with capitalism. Nevertheless, he suggests that the industry should not shy away from this connection.
Following the downfall of the prominent company FTX, the term “crypto” has gained an unfavorable reputation among the average American.
Explore the FTX fiasco here and understand why it was beneficial for Bitcoin.
However, Yat Siu, the chairman of Animoca Brands, contends that cryptocurrency’s ongoing public relations challenge is not rooted in the technology itself but rather in America’s perception of another term, “capitalism.”
“The no-coiners thing is predominantly a Western narrative. It’s much more predominant in America and Europe,” Siu told Decrypt during an interview at NFT Paris. “In Asia, we don’t have that. And I think a lot has to do with people’s perspectives towards capitalism.”
Siu argues that, unlike the West, crypto is not a contentious issue in Asia. He believes that people in Asia have embraced capitalism after experiencing failed attempts with other economic and political systems such as socialism.
Conversely, in America and Europe, where capitalism has prevailed for centuries, people, especially the younger generation, are directing their increasing anger towards billionaires and inequality towards the emerging crypto industry with disapproval.
“Capitalism hasn’t worked for them,” Siu says of younger, Western generations that have championed anti-capitalist rhetoric in recent years.
Siu believes that for these individuals, cryptocurrency is an ideal target due to its unique and inherent political nature, despite being a technological advancement.
“Blockchain is one of the few technological approaches in which a political system is actually embedded,” he says. “It’s a capitalist, liberal viewpoint of the world.”
According to Siu, although not all individuals in the cryptocurrency industry may identify as ardent capitalists, the connection between crypto and capitalism is authentic and inescapable.
“People who are in crypto, even if they don’t think of it this way…have a belief in a kind of stakeholder capitalism, in a shared economy, in which we can share values,” he said.
Siu advocates for the potential of cryptocurrency to improve the world and thinks that it could actually address the negative image of capitalism in the Western world in the future.
“I think Web3 and crypto can save the capitalist narrative,” he says. “They can reintroduce the value of democracy—which, frankly, a lot of people have started to lose faith in, more so in the West—[back into capitalism].”
Blockchain-based systems, such as DAOs, facilitate collaboration on a company-wide scale while promoting profit-sharing and group decision-making. DAOs are essentially business structures that utilize smart contracts for organization, where control is distributed rather than centralized, and members vote on issues using governance tokens. Siu is optimistic that as technological advancements like DAOs become more widespread, the negative perception of both cryptocurrency and capitalism will diminish.
We recently covered the Chinese government giving Hong Kong their blessings to allow cryptocurrency investing and trading, as well as beginning to open up their own economy. Read about it here.
