A claim from WikiLeaks sent Bitcoin bros into a spiral, convinced the government helped fund anti-crypto propaganda.
In a post on X, WikiLeaks said that an author who criticized its former head Julian Assange was secretly funded by the government.
But Bitcoin enthusiasts jumped on another angle, thinking the reveal showed an organized effort by the feds to ding cryptocurrencies as right-wing to halt their spread.
In his book, Cyberlibertarianism: The Right Wing Politics of Digital Technology, author David Golumbia called Assange a “proto-Nazi political provocateur.”
The book also called cryptocurrency a protofascist movement with far-right ties.
Golumbia had previously written The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism, which claims that cryptocurrencies are primed to be adopted by right-wing extremists due to their rejection of government.
According to WikiLeaks, the author received at least $80,000 in direct government grants, trying to tie the author to the current right-wing fervor over USAID and government propaganda.
But it’s unclear where WikiLeaks got proof of Golumbia’s funding. The University of Minnesota Press, where Golumbia was published, is funded by a variety of grants and subsidies from the government and other organizations.
Virginia Commonwealth University, where Golumbia worked before his death, also lists funding from the government.
The Daily Dot has been unable to track the origins of the specific grant that WikiLeaks claims Golumbia received.
But crypto enthusiasts were quick to attack the works of Golumbia, based on the dubious claim of federal funding
“#USAID funded medias to spread anti-Libertarian propaganda. We knew this already...we now have the receipts to prove it,” wrote one.
A crypto CEO also fumed about the reveal.
“So apparently, USAID is funding the production of propaganda that says Bitcoin is right-wing extremism,” wrote the head of Cardano, “I’m so done with this garbage.”
On crypto blogs, articles called for President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to rectify this government besmirching of the digital currency.
One crypto outlet wrote, “The inclusion of Golumbia's work in academic settings without a critical examination of its funding sources ... highlights a worrying trend within government, which the new Trump admin is trying to address, in particular with Elon Musk and the DOGE agency‘s mission.”
But much like several previous right-wing freakouts about government funding, the definite proof of any scandal was severely lacking.
In the Reddit community r/btc, users who flagged the big reveal as proof of a secret government agenda were met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Is there a part 2 to this article?" asked one. "Or anything that specified how USAID is related here? The WikiLeaks post says Golumbia received $80k in US grants ... I don't see how 'received grants' translates to 'received money from USAID' but maybe I'm missing something here?”
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