| Cade Diehm via nettime-l on Sun, 25 Jan 2026 18:18:40 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> Farewell to World Order - and stablecoin |
Seán, Brian, Nettime,Seán, you asked whether Trump seeks to maximise capital holdings alongside his neo-fascist agenda. The answer is they're the same mechanism. Here's the documented chain from stablecoin to state violence, via this extract from New Design Congress' research documenting digital identity infrastructure and its material consequences. You haven't heard too much about this report, because a US-based civil society actor targeted it with a cease and desist on 1 August 2025 that I am currently fighting. I wish I could say more about this, but I have also been threatened with libel about the circumstances leading up to 1 August 2025. Regardless, I'm reproducing the passage here because I believe it’s important to understand exactly the stakes we are dealing with:
---Golumbia’s more recent analysis in /Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology/, it becomes clear that bitcoin is not an outlier but the prototype for a wider cyber-libertarian cosmotechnics.[1] He describes how “the power of math and cryptography” is supposed to supplant the levers of government, building a “new digital topography of trust” that disempowers democratic oversight and recentralises authority in the hands of those who control the codebase and the computational resources required to run it. In stepping back and evaluating the entirety of the infrastructure that makes up the digitised society, Golumbia says of its cosmotechnics:
/ “At its narrowest core, cyberlibertarianism is a commitment to the belief that digital technology is – or should be – beyond the oversight of democratic governments – meaning democratic political sovereignty. Frequently, the sentiment can be reduced to the view that democratic governments cannot or must not regulate the internet – or, to flip this formulation on its head, that the internet should be a place to which laws do not (or cannot) apply. Even in this narrow form, cyberlibertarianism is openly self-contradictory, alternating between the view that governments are unable to use laws to regulate digital technology and the view that governments must not be allowed to use laws in this way. These two ideas are incompatible.”/ [2]
* But is Golumbia correct?* To determine this, we take one more step back, to events that unfolded over the duration of this research project. In the run‑up to Nayib Bukele’s victory in the 2019 Salvadorian elections, Bitcoin maximalists such as Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert raised campaign funds for Bukele in BTC.[3] [4] The Spanish newspaper /El País/ reported that, following Bukele’s victory, Keiser and Herbert were appointed to run El Salvador’s “National Bitcoin Office” by presidential decree, acting as gate‑keepers for investors and can design public policy.[5] Both are investors in Bitfinex/Tether and run crypto funds, giving them a financial stake in the very ecosystem they regulate.
By 2021, those same donors engineered two large capital injections:In the first instance, a /Reuters/ report from January 2025 noted that stable‑coin issuer Tether announced plans to move its headquarters to El Salvador after obtaining a digital‑asset licence. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company’s executives would relocate and the firm would hire locally. The first saw the Tether stable-coin declare its intent and make preparations to move its legal base to the country after negotiating tax holidays and regulatory carve-outs with Bukele’s government.[6] [7] The same report detailed that Tether’s reserves are primarily held in U.S. Treasuries custodied by Howard Lutnick’s brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, and an investigation by /The Guardian/ further revealed Cantor Fitzgerald’s 5 percent in Tether and custodians most of its US$134 billion in reserves, with El Salvador offers generous tax breaks to lure crypto companies.[8]
In the second, /Reuters/ reported that half of the planned US$1 billion issue would be converted into bitcoin for the state’s treasury and the other half would fund infrastructure and bitcoin mining. Bitcoin evangelist and Blockstream chief strategist Samson Mow[9] said the 10‑year bonds would pay 6.5 percent interest and that multiple issues were envisaged. This sale, known as the “Volcano Bond,” would potentially divert 50% of proceeds into Bukele’s own Bitcoin treasury and could bypass the IMF in the process.[10]
Within three months of the Tether deal, Bukele passed the Bitcoin Law, making the cryptocurrency legal tender and mandating every adult to enrol in a biometric cryptocurrency wallet called /Chivo/. El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law allows bitcoin to be used in any transaction and requires businesses to accept it, although people are not forced to pay in bitcoin.[11] An analysis of the law by the James Madison Institute explains that Article 7 compels “every economic agent” to accept bitcoin when offered, while Article 12 exempts those without access to technology;[12] it also stresses that the law does not force Salvadorans to hold bitcoin and that the government provided a public wallet.
Regardless, the /Chivo/ wallet has already leaked 144‑GB of personal data[13]; a breach containing high‑definition headshots and the personal information — including names, birth dates, addresses and identity numbers — for more than 5.1 million Salvadorans.[14] [15]
At the same time, security spending surged: Bukele broke ground on the 40 000‑capacity CECOT megaprison in 2022.[16] This “Terrorism Confinement Centre” is a structure of eight concrete blocks where cells designed for more than 100 inmates have eighty bunks, minimal ventilation and two toilets; At capacity, each prisoner would have only 0.6 square metres of space.[17] In the two years since its opening, human rights groups have tracked deaths at the facility. A 2024 report by /Cristosal/ states that at least 265 detainees have died in Salvadoran custody since the state of emergency began, amid conditions without light, hygiene or access to food.[18] [19]
The same playbook was attempted with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei. Ultimately a failed upstart of the right-wing crypto project, Milei rode a similar wave of anti-establishment crypto enthusiasm, promising to “obliterate” the central bank and mainstream Bitcoin. After Milei endorsed the $LIBRA token on social media, the token spiked and then collapsed and, a federal judge opened an investigation into Milei’s role after eight wallets drained about US$99 million from the token’s liquidity pool.[20] Milei would then face lawsuits in New York and public interrogation in Argentina over allegedly illicit association and fraud[21] over his involvement in the failed $Libra token.[22] [23] Opposition politicians called for Milei’s impeachment and the Argentine fintech chamber likened the episode to a “rug pull.”[24]
Over the course of half a decade, crypto’s libertarian promise turned into hard policy power in the United States. Industry PACs and dark-money groups spent more than US$130 million into the 2024 US elections[25] and a further $10 million into Donald Trump’s 2025 inaugural fund,[26] securing the first openly pro‑crypto administration. [27] Within weeks, the newly-elected Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, labelled Venezuela’s /Tren de Aragua/ as an “invasion force,” and authorised the removal of “any alien or lawful permanent resident” linked to the gang, without notice or hearing.[28]
On 16 March 2025, amidst the wider off-the-street kidnappings by masked and sometimes plain clothes Ice agents, a charter flight carried 238 Venezuelan asylum-seekers, most with no criminal convictions,[29] from Texas to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, where they subsequently disappeared.[30] Constitutional scholars note that the proclamation’s language sweeps in green-card holders, defying Supreme Court precedent that lawful permanent residents cannot be exiled without due-process safeguards.[31] In 2025, the same crypto-carceral machinery that targeted “foreign nationals” is now positioned to sweep up long-time U.S. residents as well, via a digital-backed infrastructure with a documented growing list of detainee deaths and inhumane conditions.[32]
Yuk Hui defines cosmotechnics as “the unification of the cosmic and moral order through technical activities.” El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has crystallised a crypto-carceral cosmotechnics: Bitcoin‑as‑legal‑tender, the biometric Chivo wallet, and the 40 000-inmate CECOT megaprison fuse code and corporeality in a single apparatus of control. *To evaluate this infrastructure, and digital identity’s pivotal role in sustaining it, is therefore to confront what Hui warns are the planetary stakes of allowing a single technological cosmology to eclipse all others: when software is elevated to cosmic law, the most malevolent desires emerge as its material outcome.*
---You can find a pre-print/unpublished version of this report here. Please feel free to share: https://newdesigncongress.org/en/report/2025/the-digital-identity-event-horizon
On the discussion of "the state of things" as they stand today, the writer John Ganz of /Unpopular Front/ <https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/to-my-readers> wrote a heart-felt reflection, noting that after starting his newsletter in January 2021, he could see that 'we were entering a new era in which the old verities of American politics were no longer applicable.' The entire piece is about his frustrations at being right, too early (something that I assert becomes apparent upon a casual browse of New Design Congress' 2018-2025 body of work <https://newdesigncongress.org/en/everything>), writing: 'To my dismay, this was not a universally shared opinion on the left. I believed this new reality posed not just a significant political issue but also an intellectual problem: it was harder and harder for people to judge what was taking place.'
I wanted to put this in your inboxes because, like Ganz, I worry we do not collectively understand the threats like we should. Indeed, nettime itself is motivated to see digital systems as problematic but ultimately liberating through encryption, decentralisation and collectivism. Amidst all of the optimism around the 'future of money' from everyone from Francesca Bria's digital blockchain Europe to the Future of Money workshops and UBI efforts of those more to the left of the EU Commission, the truth is that the only successful civilization-scale Web3 project in existence is a fascist coup crypto-carceral infrastructure pipeline that has not yet been fully reported on as one solid infrastructure, let alone grappled with. The legacy of Web3 - something built off the rhetoric of all three of these pillars - is as violent and snarling as the drones on the streets of Minneapolis today.
However, unlike Ganz, I believe (with evidence) that digital societies are brittle societies. So much of what is happening now is happening because of a stubborn anchoring to the belief that, "the worst case scenario will never happen." Only if we allow ourselves - with care - to embrace and trace our fingers over the absolute end game scenarios will we collectively be incentivised to move with decision and actually put something else together that offers real answers.
For nettime specifically, a big part of the stubborn denial is adjacent to the non fascist Web3 spheres - a resistance to fully embracing just how much of the digital dream is inherently dangerous.
Footnotes are below. Cade ----1 David Golumbia, Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2024).
2 Ibid.3 You’re the Voice, “You’re the Voice – Ep. 20: Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert – Bitcoin, Liberty & Hope,” YouTube, 8 February 2024. 4 John Knefel, “Tucker Carlson Guest Praises El Salvador’s Authoritarian President for Failing Bitcoin Experiment,” Media Matters for America, 1 December 2022. 5 David Marcial Pérez, “Crypto evangelists enter the Bukele government: The dark business of bitcoin in El Salvador,” International, 2 April 2023. 6 Federico Maccioni, “Crypto firm Tether and its founders finalizing move to El Salvador,” Reuters, 13 January 2025. 7 Jason Wilson, “Trump cabinet member’s links to El Salvador crypto firm under scrutiny,” The Guardian, 14 May 2025. 8 Scott Melker, “Cantor Fitzgerald’s Tether Ties Raise Concerns as Trump Nominates CEO for Commerce Secretary,” The Street, 30 November 2024. 9 Jonathan Laguán, “Meet Samson Mow, Architect of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bonds,” The Business of Business, 22 March 2022. 10 Jessie Willms, “On the Ground in El Salvador with Samson Mow and the Volcano Bitcoin Bond,” Bitcoin Magazine, 22 March 2022. 11 Marcos Aleman, “El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender,” PBS News, 9 June 2021. 12 Andrea O’Sullivan, “Reason: Is El Salvador’s Embrace of Bitcoin Good, Bad, or Both?”, The James Madison Institute, 6 July 2021. 13 Helen Partz, “El Salvador: Hackers Leak Code of State Bitcoin Wallet,” Cointelegraph, 23 April 2024. 14 “Hackers filtran base con datos personales de 5.1 millones de salvadoreños para descargar gratis,” El Economista, 6 April 2024. 15 David Bernal, “Filtran base con datos personales de 5.1 millones de salvadoreños, tras no lograr venderlos en línea,” La Prensa Gráfica, 6 April 2024. 16 Devin B. Martinez, “CECOT: Bukele’s Mega-Prison Where ‘the Only Way Out Is in a Coffin’,” MR Online, 22 April 2025. 17 Rhiannon Stevens, “What we know about CECOT, El Salvador’s mega-prison taking Trump’s deportees,” ABC News Australia, 25 April 2025. 18 Amnesty International, “Unlawful Expulsions to El Salvador Endanger Lives amid Ongoing State of Emergency,” 25 March 2025. 19 Pan Ho Liu, “Central America rights organization reports almost 80,000 arrests and over 250 deaths in El Salvador since 2022 state of emergency”, JURIST News, 11 July 2024. 20 Elizabeth Howcroft and Hannah Lang, “Crypto worth $99 million withdrawn from Milei-backed Libra token, researchers say,” Reuters, 20 February, 2025. 21 Nicolás Misculin and Lucinda Elliott, “Argentina federal judge to probe Milei crypto scandal, stock index falls,” Reuters, 18 February 2025. 22 Javier Lorca, “Milei, Acusado en Nueva York por la Cripto $Libra: ‘Fue una Declaración Promocional Altamente Engañosa’,” El País, 30 July 2025. 23 Candelaria Schiappa-Pietra, “Milei’s ‘Iron Triangle’ Creaks from the $Libra Cryptocurrency Scandal,” El País English, 24 February 2025. 24 Harriet Barber, “Javier Milei faces impeachment calls after Argentina cryptocurrency collapse,” The Guardian, 17 February 2025. 25 Jasper Goodman, “Crypto Won the 2024 Elections. Now Comes the Easy Part,” Politico, 8 November 2024. 26 Jasper Goodman, “Crypto Firms Pour Millions into Trump Inauguration,” Politico, 17 January 2025. 27 Danny Nelson, “Trump Becomes First Major-Party Candidate to Accept Crypto Donations,” CoinDesk, 21 May 2024. 28 Donald J. Trump, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua,” proclamation, 15 March 2025, The White House. 29 Mica Rosenberg et al., “Trump administration knew most Venezuelans deported from Texas to a Salvadoran prison had no U.S. convictions,” The Texas Tribune, 30 May 2025. 30 Human Rights Watch, “US/El Salvador: Venezuelan Deportees Forcibly Disappeared,” 11 April 2025. 31 Congressional Research Service, “ArtI.S8.C18.8.7.2 Aliens in the United States,” Constitution Annotated, accessed 30 July 2025. 32 Human Rights Watch, “El Salvador’s Prisons Are No Place for US Deportees,” 13 March 2025.
On 25/01/2026 12:35, Sean Cubitt via nettime-l wrote:
now the brownshirts are all over Minnesota and unafraid of two-year-olds and cameras. The nepo-Don’s u-turns all seem suspiciously responsive to market responses to his more ludicrous adventures in rhodomontade: but lest that sound like he cares about the wellbeing of the US economy, he has a direct stake through his already immense holdings in stablecoin. To an old leftie, the whole blockchain phenomenon looks like a scam; with various large-scale dealers in arms, drugs and illicit money the major beneficiaries. Perhaps the nettime hive mind has better insights. The world order is surely political (and military) but it hasn’t stopped being economic. We all look forward to the mid-terms, but is it the case that Trump seeks to maximise his capital holdings while in office (to ensure dynastic succession?) as much as he wants his neo-fascist agenda - and elections are only a small part of the strategy? Seán On 25 Jan 2026, at 11:00 am,nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org wrote: Send nettime-l mailing list submissions to nettime-l@lists.nettime.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.servus.at/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org You can reach the person managing the list at nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of nettime-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Farewell to World Order (Brian Holmes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:56:15 -0600 From: Brian Holmes<bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com> To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets" <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> Cc: Sean Cubitt<scubitt@unimelb.edu.au> Subject: Re: <nettime> Farewell to World Order Message-ID: <CANuiTgxm0oSgVw4u31oMihtGtsn1KEsJ_daUQFom0RSLtkiCqA@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" It's good to hear from you Sean. Yes, I think that people should boycott the USA. We who live here, however, have neglected our responsibilities too long. We have to resist and ultimately defeat this monstrosity.... It is all going so fast, it makes you sick to your stomach. Today's murder of a 37 year-old nurse, the lies and obscene justifications, the danger faced by the people on the streets.... This is a time when the blur of deliberate media overload combines precisely and willfully with issues of life and death. It has been going on since the Ukraine war began. Now these wars are coming home to their structural source. solidarity, Brian On Sat, Jan 24, 2026 at 10:35?AM Sean Cubitt via nettime-l < nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote: many thanks for this Brian, as ever incisive and insightful. The news since includes draft dodger Corporal Bone Spurs accusing soldiers of cowardice, and withdrawing military support from South Korea - which will undoubtedly please Xi who must be obeyed. Putin likewise clearly delighted at the shattering of the western alliance (after disbursing some major bribes and campaign funding to get the UK out of Europe that shouldn?t be a surprise). Someone pointed out that he and Netanyahu couldn?t attend the launch of The Don?s alternative UN because they would have been arrested as war criminals at Davos airport. Oh yeah, and the terrifying winter storms have no connection to climate change (oddly nor did the summer wildfires or the retreating polar ice that makes Greenland a tactical prize). The profound racism, the manifest corruption and devotion to Big Oil are business as usual, if more shameless than past domestic leaders, but assaults on institutions and citizens on this scale seems to an outsider relatively new. Sharing this so you don?t feel you?re shouting in a bucket, and to make damn sure I won?t visit the USA as long as the Big Orange is playing Louis XIV in his kitsch ballroom se?n Se?n Cubitt Honorary Professorial Fellow School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne Latest book: Good (aesthetic politics 2): https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/publications/good -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info:https://www.nettime.org # contact:nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info:https://www.nettime.org # contact:nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org ------------------------------ End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 31, Issue 11 *****************************************
-- ~ Cade Diehm New Design Congress https://newdesigncongress.org Book a call:https://bookings.ndc.tools/shibco/online-meeting -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org