One of the worst things to come out of the political and social polarization over the past decade is that virtually everything you do or use is a political statement. Sure, it was probably always the case, but it's more apparent now.

Like if you use an (allegedly) privacy-focused email provider instead of Gmail, it gives off the idea that you subscribe to a niche or radical political ideology that justifies hiding yourself from the feds. Maybe you just simply want a private email provider, but given that those providers are often used by political dissidents and the MSM will write hit-pieces on them it does give off that vibe. It wouldn't surprise me if people had their job applications rejected because they used a Proton email address or something like that.

This is probably why many white market businesses and services like Steam stopped accepting crypto, besides the government regulations. All of the sudden, cryptocurrency became associated with ancaps and the alt-right and by using it, even for legitimate purposes, you are pandering to them.

Of course, this is probably all by design, but it gets really frustrating that living a slightly different lifestyle means that you are some political extremist that should be put on a government red-flag list.

@xianc78 I really think the average person associates crypto more with speculation, ponzi schemes, and illegal activity than with right wingers

If people treated it like a currency instead of an asset it would have had a better image

@frost
>I really think the average person associates crypto more with speculation, ponzi schemes, and illegal activity than with right wingers

During the height of the culture war (2017-2019), it was strongly associated with the dissident right because it was the only thing that was financially supporting them.