Ever since bitcoin was first discovered, early adopters were known as being libertarians – those who prefer limited government interference and more freedom. To see if this is still true, CoinDesk Research decided to conduct a survey, with crypto community members being the participants, to see whether libertarians are the only ones to prefer the likes of cryptocurrencies. The findings were totally unexpected and different backgrounds exist today.

One chart, which looked at “Political Leanings of Cryptocurrency Community”, showed that 27 percent of participants were liberals, beating libertarians by 3 percent. Right after libertarians comes conservatives (21%), socialist and centrist (9%) and anarcho-capitalist (8%). Keep in mind that these results come from a total of 1,200 individuals who did the survey.

When comparing on a “Left vs. Right Political Spectrum by Cryptocurrencies”, it was found that about 45% of crypto fanatics are left wing, 52%, right-wing and the remaining 3% considering themselves to being Nihilist.

The left vs. right perspective is clearly contrary to popular beliefs, and according to CoinDesk, this could have been a result of two factors: one clearly being time and the other, coin tribalism – which represents one’s loyalty to a specific coin.

The argument for the former is that more and more people were aware of cryptocurrencies because of the rising prices alone, which automatically eliminates any political stances on the matter. Seeing a supposed asset grow to an extent that even traditional stocks were not capable of, especially in a short time frame, is surely to attract consumers.

The latter was explained in depth, as CoinDesk believes that one’s political views has influence over which token he or she supports. This could depend on how centralized or decentralized the token is and its relationship between one’s political views.

A chart labelled, “Political Breakdown by Cryptocurrency” shows that BTC was generally accepted by everyone, ETH seemed to be preferred by the left-wing, Dash by the right and XRP, leans more towards the center.

To further expand upon their findings, the team had also sought advice from crypto specialists, which appears to include Founder of DemocracyEarth, Santiago Siri, Ivan on Tech’s Ivan Liljeqvist, and Bitcoin Sign Guy. Each individual held a different political stance but seem to have arrived in similar conclusions.

Siri was fascinated by how the results turned out. In particular, to see that “ideological biases” within the crypto exists is definitely new.

However, he believes that,

“we might need a different spectrum: one-coin-to-rule-them-all maximalists versus free market multi-token holders.”

Liljeqvist simply stated that the transition from an “anarcho-capitalism” view drastically changed to one with general views mostly occurred sometime last year,

“when the hype around Bitcoin and the entire crypto market attracted many other people with different backgrounds.”

Bitcoin Sign Guy does not seem to be all that shocked about the results. In particular, he pointed out that “coins with highly centralized leadership and governance rank highly on leftism and socialism.”

CoinDesk also revealed Bitcoin Uncensored’s Chris Derose’s thoughts, who seems to have shared them after reviewing the results. He suggested that the 2016 election influenced the inclusion of multiple political backgrounds within the crypto sphere.

As per his quote:

“The 2016 election forced a divide in the community, with libertarian pursuits of independence and conservative principles finding ground in the dash, bitcoin and bitcoin cash camps – and with collectivist interests of the left finding solutions in crowdfunding and governance structures.”

What do you think about the findings presented in CoinDesk’s report? What could have been an interesting factor to look at to better see the relationship between political views and interest in cryptocurrencies?

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